Five Key Questions

Reading this new essay by master coach Marcus Buckingham, I am reminded again why I am drawn to coaching as a vocation and its power to illuminate the basic truths that can lead to happier, more authentic lives.

As part of a series of essays Buckingham is writing on Women and Happiness for the popular Huffington Post website, he poses these five critical questions to drill down on how to chose happiness:

1. How often do you get to do things you really like to do?
2. How often do you find yourself actively looking forward to the day ahead?
3. How often do you get so involved in what you're doing you lose track of time?
4. How often do you feel invigorated at the end of a long, busy day?
5. How often do you feel an emotional high in your life?

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcus-buckingham/what-the-happiest-and-mos_b_301406.html

For those unfamiliar with Marcus Buckingham, he is best known for his work as a strengths coach; that is, focusing on those things and behaviors that strengthen us. And although his Huffington Post essays concentrate on women, there is learning here for everyone.

With the questions listed above, you can see the distinction between those things we are good at, and those things which are good for us. That can be a tough distinction to make, especially when we are rewarded or even honored for practices that drain our spirits.

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If you have the chance, I really recommend reading all of the Buckingham essays on Women and Happiness. He provides the background his research, which showed despite all the technological advances and the improving status of women in cultures around the world, women self-reported being less happy with their lives. That essay is here.

Buckingham breaks it down further in his next essay, saying that the more options women have, the more they seem to use those options to measure themselves, often negatively. In other words, they didn't focus on what they did well; they stressed over all they were not doing, or not doing well enough. My description may be slightly off -- judge for yourself here.

New School Communications/Old School Respect

This is another entry/salvo in the social media wars.

A dear friend of mine is somewhat of a social media maven. She gives presentations to nonprofits and other groups about how they can utilize Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. as communications tools to expand their message, their audience and their brand.

Recently, she noted that while participating on a panel with other presenters, some of the panelists would whip out their Blackberrys or Netbooks or other keyboards and start typing while other people were speaking. The feedback from their audience showed that some people found this behavior to be quite rude; others didn't mind at all.

The response from the typing presenters was that they thought it would be cool to check Twitter during the event to see how much traffic it was generating.

My friend likened this to teenagers who constantly tweet or text while having dinner at grandma's house.

Now, I have to say that my first reaction to this is "Oh, HELL no." And I will tell you that if either of my kids started texting while visiting their grandmother, they would get a side eye look from me that would virtually zap that phone out of their hands.

To me, this is a basic matter of respect. And a lesson in communications 101. If you ever heard of the famous Dale Carnegie course, you know that its title is "How to Win Friends and Influence People."

I don't see how you're going to influence anyone if you can't even pretend to be interested in them.

If I have paid money to attend a seminar, or even if I left the comfort of my home or office to attend a free seminar, the least the presenters could do is act like they think the information is worth listening to. And that they want to be there.

Have you ever had a professional or social meeting with someone who kept checking their watch? Didn't each glance down make you feel a little smaller; a little less important in that person's sphere?

Now, I will acknowledge that the rules may be different for a presentation on social media. In fact, the idea of a real-time demonstration of how social media tracks an event could heighten the learning experience for the audience.

However, there's a way to do that while letting the audience know what you're trying to accomplish. Then they are in on the experiment. In fact, they are your partner.

If that, indeed, was what the presenter was doing.

My suspicion, like that of many of the people who complained, was that the presenter had not committed to being fully present for the seminar audience. And some of the audience did not like it.

My friend puts on a really good presentation: funny, engaging, informative, accessible. I know that anyone who saw her speak left with new information they could apply to their work the very same day.

However, I'm also guessing that a lot of the audience left with a less-than-positive impression of the presenters who checked out of the seminar as they sat on the panel before them. Which strikes me as an ineffective way of communicating with anyone.

From my old school frame of mind: your devotion to new technology does not trump your obligation to respect the people in front of you.

Mercury Retrograde

As a baby boomer, I grew up with more than a passing awareness of astrology. I know my sign (Taurus); I know the basic characteristics associated with the 12 astrological signs. I've even had my chart read -- more than once.

Overall, I'm not much of a follower of astrology. I can't say that I even read my horoscope with any regularity. But there is one astrological phenomenon I track: Mercury Retrograde.

Mercury Retrograde occurs about three times a year, for a period of about three weeks. It marks a time when the planet Mercury appears to be moving backwards in its orbit in the night sky. In truth, it's an illusion. But this occurrence is said to wreck havoc with communications between human beings, whether face to face conversations, contracts, correspondence and the devices we use to communicate with each other.

Here's more on the phenomenon, as described on the website About.com:

What happens during Mercury Retrograde?:

Since Mercury rules communication, it's said that everything goes haywire in that area -- emails get deleted or bounced back, mail is returned, calls go out into the ethers, etc. Some people find that their computers go on the fritz or phone lines go down. I've never seen the hard data on this, so make your own observations. It does seem though that miscommunications abound during the retrograde period.

A Time-Out:

Mercury retrograde gives us time to catch up with ourselves, and to look back. Something from the past might return in a different form. This can mean people, ideas or buried insights that need to surface for you to move forward. Often it's felt as a contemplative time, depending on the sign, a chance to go over old ground again, to claim what you missed the first time.

Be Non-Committal:

There's a long-held belief that it's best to avoid making set plans during the Mercury Retrograde. This means being cautious about things like signing contracts, and forming partnerships and corporations. What gets put in writing at this time may turn out to need serious revising after Mercury goes direct. But since tying up loose ends is the domain of retrograde, this type of finalization might fly.

Can you repeat that?:

In our relationships, sometimes we gloss over things that pushed buttons at the time, but which we let slide. What seemed not worth the trouble may reveal itself as a major issue in need of our attention. The Mercury retrograde is a time for review, when the underlying patterns come to light.

Back to the Drawing Board:

Some dreams and goals get lost in the hectic rushing around of daily life. The Mercury Retrograde period can be a rich time of reflection on those longings. This makes it a time for the soul to ponder its destiny. You might look over old journals, review your creative work, muse on serendipities of the past that have pointed you toward your spirit's calling. It can make the retrograde period a time of solidifying a sense of your personal story and where you're headed.

One potent example of the possible power of Mercury Retrograde: the fractious 2000 presidential election happened during a Retrograde period.

The current Retrograde period started Monday, September 7, and lasts through September 29. The Retrograde effect is said to extend at least a week beyond its official start and finish.

I marked the beginning of the current Retrograde period with the repeated failure of a home computer. It's an older machine, but it's been pretty reliable and provides backup for the laptops in our network. Starting in August, this computer divorced itself from the Internet, defeated almost every repair attempt whether by telephone instruction or professional on site repair, and required a complete re-installation of its operating system. We have spent hours trying to restore this machine to connectivity. I gave it all I had in an effort to avoid buying a new machine.

After another three hours of online chat last night, I think we're back in business.

So I'm convinced that Mercury Retrograde is front and center right now. And I'm also trying to remember the opportunities that it can offer. A review of the About.com entry above highlights the idea that tangled communications may force us to focus on problems that we have been glossing over; things that need more attention. The additional effort could leave us in a better place than we were before.

In other words, Mercury Retrograde may provide the perfect opportunity for reflection.

Multi-Labor

Happy Labor Day!

At this traditional transition point of the end of summer and the start of fall's more serious pursuits, I thought it was a good time to revisit a theme that plays out in countless offices and households everywhere -- the myth of multitasking.

Academic research deconstructing the multitasking myth continues to multiple. The latest was published about a week ago by Stanford University. Researchers Eyal Ophis, Clifford Nass and Anthony Wagner focused on three major assumptions about "successful" multitaskers in this electronic hyper-information consumption era:

1) They manage to pay attention simultaneously to multiple stimuli.

2) They can shuttle from task to task more quickly than other people.

3) They can control their memories better so that they can resume a task from right where they left off.

But in a series of tests which compared those who regularly do a lot of media multitasking with those who don't, the multitaskers were:

1) More distractable

2) Less able to sort through stimuli

3) Less able to stay on task

The Stanford website has a great summary of the study, which can be found here.

Tell the truth: is multitasking making you are productive as you think?

Safety First

Management coach extraordinaire Jill Geisler hits the mark today in her regular podcast for the Poynter Institute. She's talking about how smart managers can benefit from creating a "Safe Venting Zone" for themselves.

(A link to Jill's management blog, "Leading Lines," can be found on the left rail of this page, just a few scrolls down).

Jill recognizes that everyone can get overwhelmed sometimes and need to blow off some steam -- even the most competent and creative executives. As Jill describes it:

"Used properly, your Safe Venting Zone provides you with ideas, solutions and a little therapy. In the Zone, you are away from your staff and in the company of a highly qualified partner."

Jill addresses the need for confidentiality and discretion, vital qualities to keep a "Safe Venting Zone" safe.

Jill adds: "Great bosses know that even blowing off steam needs to be done strategically or it can be self-defeating. That's especially the case when bosses choose to vent to their employees."

She's specifically writing about newsroom managers, but everyone can benefit from planning a safe place to vent.

You can read more from Jill here. And link to the podcast here.

One more thing: Happy Birthday, Jill!