Janet Britcher was interviewed on Cultural Brilliance Radio with Claudette Rowley, about her book, Zoom Leadership: Change Your Focus, Change Your Insights. This is part 3, in which Janet talks about a tool for leadership decisions, and how to apply the model to a client.
Claudette Rowley: We are back on Culture Brilliance Radio. I’m Claudette Rowley. For those of you just joining us, my guest today is Janet Britcher who is the author of a really really important and informative book called Zoom leadership – Change Your Focus, Change Your Insights. Janet, one thing I wanted to ask you about before I forget is, if people want to purchase your book, learn more about your work, what is the best way for them to find out about you?
Janet Britcher: Yes they can find it on Amazon also on my website. My company is Transformation Management, my website is transformationmanagement.com and they can learn more about it there.
Claudette Rowley: Excellent. Thank you. Amazon or transformationmanagement.com.
Janet Britcher: Yes.
Claudette Rowley: Great. Okay good. One thing as we were going through and talking about the different lenses of think, act, feel, and witness, what are the things that are coming up is that leaders, so many leaders and as you said earlier a leader is not just someone at the C level. It can be anyone in an organization who is leading something. There’s so much pressure to make a decision. That things just become very fixed. If I’m pressured to make a decision constantly, I probably will, unless I’m careful, look for my own whatever my own lens is. Just keep making decisions through that. How do we help leaders step back a little bit?
Janet Britcher: I think one of the techniques really is to try to reduce the amount of stress. What we know about stress and as previously mentioned, I love the neurology of leadership. We’re learning so much more every year about how our brain works. When we’re stressed, our brain constricts. You actually, in that moment, know less than you really know. As anybody who has ever lost keys right in front of them knows what I mean. It is a surprise when we’re under stress, we don’t have access to all the good ideas or innovation that’s really available.
One of the things that I offer in this is a way is a methodology. I don’t have to choose between good and good or bad and bad because some choices are actually good choices. “Do I want a vacation in Virginia?” or, “Do I want a vacation in Washington?”
Some choices are pleasant but mutually exclusive. Or some choices are, “This candidate really doesn’t meet my needs and that one doesn’t either. Should I choose one of them anyhow or should I start over?” Those are hard choices. The idea of reducing the amount of stress certainly, I’m a big advocate of all the mindfulness techniques. Take a deep breath, count to 10 and then be able to use a methodology like four lenses. You can remember four things. You could remember that. Over time it’ll become a little more automatic. I think that’s the best way to think about it. It’s to take a moment, realize that the outcome isn’t urgent.
So many decisions in business are not immediately urgent. Using that one decision making, another aspect of the neurology of leadership is a hypothesis. It’s stored in our brain like a fact. You form a hypothesis and you forget that it’s not a fact. Act on that as if it’s the only course. Giving yourself permission to take time to make a good decision, making a pact with a co-worker, “I’m stumped on this. Do you have five minutes?” Journaling is a great way, or send yourself an email. “Here’s my dilemma. Here’s what I’m thinking.” Wait a minute, take a walk around, come back. Anything you can do to pause just a little bit will increase and enhance the ability you have to access your own brain more effectively.
Claudette Rowley: Yes and those are just great suggestions. They don’t take much time. Think and take a minute walk around the building. Something like that where you can just– I know sometimes I will get solutions to things. I might be working on at the gym. I might have gone for a walk but to your point where I’m just giving my brain a break.
Janet Britcher: Exactly.
Claudette Rowley: All of a sudden, it’ll pop in my head and I’ll bet, that’s exactly right. That is the thing to do. I just have to sense that it’s the right way to move forward. If I made the decision earlier, I probably would have come up with something else that wasn’t as good.
Janet Britcher: I think that’s exactly right. Working out at the gym, taking walk. Those are great ways to give our brain a break. It should be open to insights that might serve us.
Claudette Rowley: Like you said, stressed-focus mental state, there’s just no room for that creativity anymore.
Janet Britcher: That’s right.
Claudette Rowley: It would be great to hear an example from one of your clients. Is there one you can share like, how you took them through this process and what happened?
Janet Britcher: Sure. Let me bring up a client. I’ll describe the outcome. This is in the book. The book is comprised of applying the model through dialogue with cases that I actually had over the years. Of course, I changed the details to preserve confidentiality. That’s mainly what the book is comprised of these coaching sessions. Where you can actually watch it happening. Malcolm was a tax accountant who had recently been recruited away from a company he had been at for 17 years. He’s in his new job about three months and his boss Richard called me. Said, he was worried about the cultural fit. Something I’m sure Claudette, that you’ve come in contact with.
Claudette Rowley: Definitely yes.
Janet Britcher: He was brilliant, well-regarded, had a big reputation. They really did want to keep him. But 17 years at an old company leaves you feeling like you know how to navigate but you know how to navigate somewhere else. When I met with him I asked, ”Do you know why your boss Richard has asked me to work with you?” He started as you might expect with this thinking lens. Somebody trained like that in accounting and tax. He said, “I know my directness has been an issue but at my last job, they understood me. I don’t waste time on this needless conversation. I come right to the point. That’s good for the client and it’s good for all of us.” There is this thinking that he’s really focused.
He’s got his logic and it’s good logic. Then I asked, “How is that received?” He admits, people don’t get it. He said, “They don’t get my contribution. I can be blunt but blunt is efficient. It’s me coming to the point.” He knew that his bluntness was a problem but still he was using it because in his old organization that had worked. I wonder, I’m looking now, I’m thinking, “What’s going to motivate him? What’s on his mind that would make him receptive?” He said, “Well, I’m not getting the kind of credit and recognition that I’m used to.”
He was concerned about the criticism and even though that’s kind of a thinking logic lens, I also hear a little bit of that feeling lens. They’re not always quite separate. I asked, “What happens when you lose a listener with one of your ideas? He complains, “They push back before I even have a chance to explain.” Then I ask, “What do you want to be different?” Again, a very thinking lens kind of question. He said, “People shouldn’t complain that I’m arrogant or bulldozing them, I’m not.”
Perceptions, I asked him about, “Your intentions are something you’d like to change?” Again, I’m staying with him in that thinking lens. Finally, he said yes. He does want to change their perceptions. Then I offered a framework he responded to. I said, “What if the culture here is just kind of upside down for you?” I told him about an exhibit I had seen in a museum, where the leader wore fancy sandals but no crown.
“You’re in a culture where everything is upside down to you. You have a different faster pace of thinking and speaking. What if it was simply a cultural disconnect?” It was such a relief to him he said, “Then, it’s not so much that things are wrong with me is the perceptions others have. I do have anxiety about all the balls I’m bouncing.” As soon as the thinking lens was somewhat addressed, he moved his lens to feeling which surprised me, frankly, that he would do that and open that question of anxiety. I stay with that feeling lens and asked him a little more about it and he said, “I know I’m capable. How can I help it if they don’t get it?” Switching back to the thinking like, “I’m right, they’re wrong.” Then, I went to the thinking lens and I asked, “How do you define success?” He said, “Being clear and direct and forceful,” which was actually the complaint about him.
I said, “What else is being asked of you now?” He paused and said, “My interactions, I guess.” What I was going for was understanding his motivation for making a change. If he could get out of thinking logically that his approach which had, in fairness, always served him well, might be modified for the new culture. If he could look at the new culture’s requirement not as making him wrong or incompetent.
Claudette Rowley: It sounds like inviting him in a way to be more of a witness to it, to himself and them, the culture.
Janet Britcher: Good point, yes.
Claudette Rowley: He could start to see how he fit in or wasn’t fitting in. It sounds like you’re helping him generate more options.
Janet Britcher: That’s right. I said, “What would it look like?” Now, I’m thinking about the acting lens. “What would it look like if you’re willing to do some of this different?” He said, “I could bite my tongue, say less, and listen more,” which is right. His new actions had to be different. As we develop that, he had a meeting the next day and we thought through that and I said, “How are you going to do that with this person?” He said, “I don’t know. Steven always says a sentence and then it takes him forever to say the next sentence and I guess I interrupt him. I move in so quickly and I interrupt him.” I asked, how you can remind yourself to bite your tongue, say less, and listen more? I found people can’t just stop doing something, they have to substitute. He said, “Well, I’ll have to look out the window. The guy’s office is right at the window. I’ll have to look out the window while I’m waiting. I’ll have to count.”
[laughter]
Claudette Rowley: That’s a great — Sorry, go ahead Janet.
Janet Britcher: He knew what he had to do. He had a way of doing it.
Claudette Rowley: What a great, great story. Thank you so much for sharing that and really bringing this to life for us. We are going to take a quick break. When we come back, we’re going to talk a little bit more about the feel and witness lens and how you can start to bring more of that into your leadership. That’s something that would benefit you and your organization. You’re listening to Cultural Brilliance Radio, I’m Claudette Rowley. Stay tuned, we’ll be right back.
Link to parts 1,2 & 4
Zoom Leadership, and the Need for Flexible Focus (Cultural Brilliance Radio – Part 1)
The Feel and Witness Lens of the Zoom Leadership Coaching Model (Cultural Brilliance Radio – Part 4)