Article – Saving (or Creating) Space

Blog post from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

You’ve probably all heard of the phrase “saving space for someone” or “creating space for someone”.  If you, like me, struggled understanding what that means, this article is for you.

Imagine that you are in the middle lane of a road and need to get to the left lane to make your upcoming turn.  You, assuming you are not from California, activate your turn signal to get into that left lane.  The car just to your left side sees this, slows down, and lets you in. She or he created space for you, and you were successful because of that. Hopefully, you waved in response to this gesture of kindness.

Likewise with people, creating or saving space is about giving them room to fix or heal from whatever is going on with them.  It is truly an act of kindness to give them space and an extra blessing when you don’t offer unsolicited advice or direction.  Saving or creating space differs from forgiveness in that there is no immediacy of result and there is no quantifiable way to forecast the amount of time and space needed.  Saving or creating space is the opposite of cutting and running at first sign of trouble or because of any challenge.

Let’s consider a couple of examples from the workplace.  You have a long-term valued team member that is going through some issues in his home life.  His performance and demeanor have dropped significantly.  He is no longer a high performer, and he is no longer much fun to be around.  As his leader, you can choose to hold him accountable for his drop in performance or you can take a more exploratory approach and see what is wrong.  When you realize it is not work related, you again have options.  You can tell him to suck it up, offer him some advice on how to deal with the issue, or best yet, give him the space and time needed to resolve his issue.  This compassionate approach is not a one-size-fits-all type of solution and it requires leaders to exercise some judgment and see through stories that are designed to deceive.  When you choose to create space for this team member and allow him the opportunity to recover, you will gain a loyal and supportive team member for the rest of his career.

Like the above example, consider a new team member that is struggling to learn the intricacies of the job.  She interviewed well, had great references, and certainly had the depth of education and experience to succeed at the job.  With her 90-day probation period ending, again you are faced with some choices.  You can, with very little documentation needed, move on from her and cut her loose, you can provide her with some corrective feedback about her learning curve, or you can create some space and extend that probationary period because you believe in her ability to succeed.  You can create some space for her to succeed.  Again, this compassionate approach has no guarantee but if successful, she will be loyal and hard-working for a long time to come.

Now consider a couple of examples from our life outside of work.  Your significant other makes a mistake.  It happens all the time.  Do you immediately set him out on the curb for the recycling pickup the next day or do you create some space to allow him to resolve the issue?  As silly as it sounds, there are those people that use a one-and-done approach to the mistakes of others.  Sad, but it happens.  Think about a long-term friend who misspeaks and hurts your feelings.  This friend has always been cherished and certainly ignored many of your shortcomings.  Do you immediately abandon that friend, or do you save some space for them to recover and allow them back into your circle?  Hopefully you are creating and saving space in both examples.

Another side of saving space for someone is related to change.  We all want people to give us the opportunity to change, grow, and evolve.  In most cases we also want other people to acknowledge our changes (weight loss, new clothes, demeanor evolutions).  The challenge becomes in how much space do we save or create for other people to change, or do we only accept a version of them that we have crafted based on historical events?  The compassionate and caring approach is to create and save space to allow other people to change, especially when they have announced an intention to do so.

Ultimately saving or creating space has a couple of key ingredients: compassion or caring, and faith.  The compassion and caring come from a true desire to allow the other person to succeed and desire to see that person placed in the best possible situation.  It is also the desire to keep that person in your life, whether at work or at home.  The faith ingredient is about the belief that some time and space will allow for growth, healing, and recovery from whatever issue the other person is experiencing.  The other keys to saving or creating space include a willingness to walk with someone during a time of difficulty and not abandon them.  Abandoning a person is easy, walking with them is much more challenging.  The final key to successfully creating or saving space is to be non-judgmental of what got them to their current point.  Again, this is not easy and we will naturally jump to some judgements about how they got there, but we must stay away from those.

Look for opportunities to save or create space for others.  Allow your compassionate side to show.  Demonstrate some faith.  The risk is nominal, and the benefits are unlimited. 

Article – The Kindness of Strangers

The Kindness of Strangers

By Tim Schneider

My last work trip was extraordinary. Not because of the work as that was routine. The customers were great, and all were repeat engagements. The truly extraordinary part comes from the kindness of total strangers during this trip.

I am not blessed with a large family, nor do I have a large circle of close friends. Although I know thousands of people, my inner circle can be counted on one hand. They are a cherished group, but I do not see or talk to them every day.

I recently returned from two full weeks on the road. My lone return home was four hours to change suitcases and work bags. In these stretches of time, it is easy to develop some loneliness and to feel isolated. It is me, in a strange city, with a group of customers that are largely unfamiliar to me, and none of the comforts of home. Unfamiliar food choices, strange beds, challenges in navigating, and not feeling particularly comfortable at any stop.

What made this trip different, starting with the first flight, was the kindness heaped upon me by total strangers. First there was the Southwest flight attendant that carefully prepared my coffee (two creams, two sugars) and provided a refill on the redeye to Minneapolis. The service standard for Southwest is to provide the cream and sugar packages and she mixed it with care and checked to see if it was to my liking. The Marriott front desk person who fetched a luggage cart and hauled my training materials up to my room at midnight, while working alone, was the next random kindness.

Over the course of the next several days and multiple cities, this repeated many times. The two bartenders at the neighborhood tavern who not only served a great dinner but checked in often with their solo diner. The waitress at the same establishment that looked far and wide for a glass of milk. The Marriott team member who opened the kitchen at 11:30pm to find her craving guest some milk before bed. The convenience store clerk who put an free treat in my bag was a very nice surprise.

Now before you jaded souls label all of this as nothing more than providing great customer service, I would offer that all of these were well beyond standards of great service and moved into genuine human kindness. The recognition of the need for compassion and delivering it in spades. I would also offer my encounter, while lost in the skyway, with an attorney who not only provided directions, but walked me to my lunch destination and engaged in some great conversation about commercial real estate. Or consider the homeless man who took great pleasure in holding the door for me on multiple occasions while downtown. He wouldn’t accept anything except appreciation and a smile. Pure kindness from both men.

For me, the lessons were clear and resonating. First, I must always be open to receiving kindness from the outside world and from people I don’t know. We often traverse life with blinders that ignore those acts of kindness directed our way and only truly experience it when it comes from our family or friends.  As I learn to be more open to receiving kindness, more will come my way.

The second lesson was to always appreciate those acts of kindness and validate their efforts. They knew with my words, my tone, and the look in my eyes, that I appreciated their kindness and what they did for me. In some cases, I told them why I appreciated them so much.

The final and most powerful lesson for me, and hopefully you will be inspired to do the same, was to continue the circle of kindness to strangers I encounter. I don’t have the slightest idea what others are going through and I may be the only kind and polite word offered to them that day. I am committed to brightening as many lives as possible with the power of kindness.

Kindness, pass it along, and be grateful when it comes your way.

Invest Your Energy Wisely

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

Leadership requires a great deal of emotional, mental and physical energy to be truly effective.  The passion, focus, care and commitment required can certainly take a toll on even the strongest of people.  You can’t sleepwalk or mail in your leadership role.  You must give it all you have.  Every.  Single.  Day.

In addition to energy, great leaders also have a helpfulness in their DNA.  They WANT to serve others, help others and fix things.  Every great leader believes, down to his or her core, that they can make a significant impact on their organization and the people in which they are charged with leading.  They believe they can fix people. 

Now for the challenge.  How much time, emotional energy and effort do we invest in situations and people in which the return is extremely low or non-existent?  An when we invest in the un-coachable and in those projects, which have no impact, what are we neglecting?  Gamblers have a phrase for this phenomenon; chasing losses.  It rarely works out well for the gambler and it rarely works out for the effective leader.

For every moment invested poorly or with those team members that have almost no chance of resurrection, a team member with a spark of motivation and eagerness is getting ignored.  An important one-on-one meeting gets brushed off again.  Mentoring is abandoned.  Places where real return on your energy investment go neglected and all for the false belief that we can fix anybody.

Another point of jeopardy with unfixable situations and unchanging people is that they are energy vampires.  Not only do they not respond to your investment of time and energy but they drain you at a significant level.  Compare for a moment how your energy and emotional composition feels after interacting with one of these vampires compared to someone you lead that responds well to you.  Not even close.

Likewise, relationships with others have the same dynamic.  We often spend way too much time, energy and attention on those people that give nothing back in return.  Great relationships reciprocate energy, and no one should ever feel drained from the interactions. 

Do we owe the difficult people, un-coachable and troubled relationships some of our energy?  Yes of course but it must come with boundaries and limits.  It must be moderated and balanced with those people that return your energy and effort.  The best of all leaders are great stewards of their time and energy and invest it where the highest return exists. 

And now some strategies for maximizing your energy investment:

  1. Identify those people and areas of your life that are not responding to your energy investment.
  1. Check to see if you have provided solid, and clear, communication, attempted to build rapport, provided positive feedback, empowered and encouraged that person. Also test to ensure you have analyzed and discussed having that person in right role.
  1. Sandwich interactions with energy vampires around interactions with energy responders and restorers. Nothing will suck the life out of you quicker than multiple, back-to-back, conversations with energy draining people.
  1. Limit the amount of time you spend with energy drainers. Reinvest that time with people who respond to your energy and effort.  Stop rewarding their bad behavior or performance with more of your attention.
  1. To paraphrase Jim Collins (Good to Great), move them off the bus and get them out of your work and life.

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

Grieving Change

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

My old house was really not special or unique on any level.  1100 square feet, office, master bedroom and some under-stair storage.  Nice neighbors, too many sirens and fully audible play-by-play of football on Friday nights from the next-door high school. 

But for three years it was home.  Our little landing place, safe spot and quiet zone for me and Miss Sydney.  Knew where everything was and could find things in the dark.  Comfortable and completely crafted and designed by me.  Contained and protected all my treasures. 

The contrasting change is a new home, three times the size, new roommates, bigger yard, space, space and more space.  Exciting stuff with a lifetime of new memories coming.  There is no doubt about a better future in this home.

But the one lesson I learned when my dad passed was to mourn the loss of the old situation.  Even though my old bachelor pad was not much to write home about, I need to mourn that change.  With my dad, I didn’t do that for many years.  Moved right into performance mode and even denied emotional connection.  Took care of everything and everyone and never took the time to mourn the loss.  That exploded some years later in a necessary breakdown related to the missing of my weekly conversations and annual visits. 

Even though a house change is not close to the emotional connection with a loved one, there is still emotional connection.  Emotional connection that cannot be denied.  To fully move on and be joyful and present in my new home, I needed to mourn the loss of the old place.

And so, it is with all changes and even, those changes that happen in the working environment.  We lose a team member; we need to grieve it and mourn.  There is a procedure that we have high expertise in; we need to mourn its passing and change.  The organizational structure changes; we need to take some time, reflect and mourn. 

To some of you reading this, you will find this a bit much and even be dismissive of the entire concept of mourning a procedure or cubicle location but hang with me for a moment.  The cycle of change, regardless of the depth and scope of change, requires a grieving, stressing or mourning prior to coping and moving into performance.  Change becomes a unique human adaptation because it requires both a cognitive (mental) and emotional reaction.  The cycle of change is described as:

Change Event

What becomes different. 

Stressing, Grieving, Mourning

Degree of emotional reaction associated with comfort, expertise and love connected to the prior situation or person.

Coping

Point-in-time acknowledgement that you must survive, adapt and move forward in the new situation.

Performing

The recovery of prior levels of functioning after the coping point.

(Repeat to Next Change Event)

Now let’s look at some telltale signals and signs of the need to grieve:

  1. Constant Referencing the Way it Was
  1. Memorials and Tributes to People Gone and Lost
  1. Tributes to the “Old Days”
  1. Not Recovering into Performance
  1. Staying “Stuck in the Past”
  1. Not Learning or Adapting to the New Ways or Situations

The complete object lesson of this is learning how and when to grieve a loss related to a change, no matter how big or small.  The principles of grieving are the same for a lost loved one as they are for a new technology at work.

  1. Acknowledge the Feelings and Emotions of Loss

Openly accept the hurt and emotions related to your loss.  Don’t deny them.  Don’t say your alright. 

  1. Provide Time to Grieve

Give yourself some time to reflect on the loss and reflect on what you valued about the old situation.  Resurrect some fond memories and allow yourself the feeling of fondness.  Do this as soon as possible.  Delay in this step can exasperate the feelings of hurt and reduce your ability to move forward.

  1. Accept and Acknowledge

Intellectually accept that things will not be the same and will never return to the previous situation.

  1. Focus on the Benefits of the New

Create or focus on the positive outcomes from the change event.  If you are unable to summon this, you may need to go back and spend more time grieving what you lost.

  1. Learn

Develop and learn new skills associated with the changes that you are experiencing.  Build a set of competencies that restore normalcy and return your expertise.

  1. Adapt and Overcome

The final stage is to restore your performance and functioning.  Return to your routines with the new reality and begin to really adjust to your situation.  Many people (me included) have tried to jump to this step which really stunts the recovery from change period.

A final note about grieving a loss is about time.  There is no magic formula for how long this will take you.  Some losses will take months, and even years, to recover from while some, like my old house, this cycle can be moved through in minutes.

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

Drama Queen and Emotion King

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

I know you know them.  You may work with them.  They may live in your neighborhood or even your own home.  Drama Queen and Emotion King.

To Drama Queen (DQ) and Emotion King (EK), every event is worthy of sharing and over sharing.  Every small thing that the rest of us brush off and rack up to another day, they turn into a major crisis.  As we work to calm others, they work to stir up others.  When we try to fix a problem, they tend to make it worse.  When they exist in the workplace, they offer some significant challenges to leaders.

First some of the symptoms.  When the office temperature goes down just a little, DQ thinks she will freeze.  The slightest shift of policy and practices causes EK to rant endlessly about the adverse impact.  EK has more dysfunctional relatives than a year’s worth of The Jerry Springer Show.  DQ is getting sick every other day and is either shivering or burning up from fever. 

The bottom line is with both DQ and EK is that this type of behavior is very disruptive in the working environment and can be highly counter-motivational to the rest of the team.  Drama hurts the workplace and the well intending team members caught in the storm that surrounds it. 

Researchers have tried in the past to put some quantifiable face on workplace drama.  There have been studies related to age (millennials versus generation X), gender (men versus women), job type (blue versus white collar) and even lunar cycle.  In each attempt to study the phenomenon, no trends were found other than workplace drama can be a aggravating and compounding factor in workplace toxicity and lead to a great deal of lost productivity, turnover and a large drop in morale.

The one certain element in our drama causers, DQ and EK, is that they both lack the emotional intelligence to deal with situations and issues that the rest of us can process easily and with no interruption.  High degrees of emotional intelligence allow us to have greater resilience (bounce back), confidence and self-satisfaction.  Poor emotional intelligence means that an individual lack in these critical competencies and skills.  When they don’t have the skills to cope, people project and emote their frustrations and feel compelled to seek outside validation and have others involved.

Effective leaders will deal with workplace drama and our pals DQ and EK in the following ways:

  1. Model Behavior

The most powerful and easily controlled method of dealing with workplace drama is to not share yours.  No matter how benign it sounds on the surface, your challenges may be interpreted as drama to others.  Don’t complain, whine or bring your personal issues to work.  If it is cold, put on a jacket.

  1. Not Biting

Workplace drama enthusiasts (DQ and EK) really want someone to pay attention to them and to validate their concerns.  Don’t acknowledge the rants, complaints, tantrums and pouting.  If their behaviors lack validation, they will soon lack any credibility.

  1. Not Accommodating

One of the more prevalent tactics of drama purveyors is the need to have different terms and working conditions as a result of their drama.  When we do not accommodate their requests for differential treatment, we are disabling their ability to get what they want through the drama route.

  1. Refocusing to Mission and Objectives

The gentle, subtle and sometimes right between the eyes reminder that team members are charged with certain responsibilities to support the organization is a powerful reminder to cut the drama.  Team members are paid to perform a job function and not to provide a support group for the wayward and heartbroken.

  1. Clear Expectations of Behavior

The final method of dealing with workplace drama is the only proactive method.  This is to clearly articulate and reiterate that drama type behavior is not acceptable at your organization.  It is not that you are not uncompassionate but rather that you and your team are focused on the needs of the organization.

Tim Schneider from Aegis Learning

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

Skin in the Game: Are You Interested or Invested?

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

Most often attributed to the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffet, the phrase “skin in the game” probably originated in a California newspaper in the summer of 1912.

Regardless of origin, the phase has been quoted millions of times in baseball dugouts, football huddles, board rooms and corporate meeting rooms.  One of the more famous recent uses of the phrase came from Barrack Obama prior to his being sworn in as president of the United States.  The president-elect was describing the shared sacrifice needed by all Americans to resurrect the economy.

“Skin in the game” is used to describe commitment and participation in any activity.  It is especially descriptive of the difference between someone who is fully invested in an activity compared to those who are passive spectators.  It might be money invested, time spent or actual skin shred on an athletic field, “skin in the game” is a very descriptive phrase that is more powerful than “buy in” or “commitment.”

I have had the privilege of spending a significant amount of time with an executive in the convention services industry.  Her favorite take on “skin in the game” is “are you interested or are you invested?”  Highlighting the difference between true commitment to a task, project or issue, “interested or invested” challenges people to check their level of commitment.  Beyond buy-in and even more business relevant than “skin in the game”, “interested or invested” is a great self-check in anything in which you claim to be committed.

When examining interested, you see people that probably talk a good game.  They express their commitment to others and they will argue tooth and nail about their level of commitment.  Unfortunately, when you scratch the surface a little, you realize their commitment level is nothing but talk and their involvement beyond the minimum requirement is nonexistent.  There is no initiative and there certainly is no subordination of self-interest for the good of the organization.

An interim step between interest and invested could best be described as involved.  Involvement is different from investment because of the emotional commitment required.  Involvement looks a great deal like fully engaged team members because those team members are in motion and action is occurring.  Work gets done, extra labor is applied, time is spent but it is still not at full investment.  Involvement is action without commitment.  It is better than being interested but can still be fleeting because there is no real emotional commitment.  It is the living together of work commitment level.

Invested is when a team member gives of themselves, commits their own time and resources and is really committed to the direction, mission and vision of the organization.  That is the team member that asks what needs to be done and not “what’s in it for me”.  It is the team member that works to get something done without inquiry about overtime.  It is the team member that is becoming a business partner and moving away from being an employee.  Not that compensation should ever be ignored but it is not the most important part of the equation.  Doing what’s right and what is needed is the most important part.

Invested is also about subordinating self-interest and comfort.  It is truly amazing how committed some people claim to be but when their comfort is challenged, they revert back very quickly to being moderately interested.  How invested would you be if that investment meant taking a pay cut?  How about downsizing your office?  How about requiring more work at the same level of compensation?  Those are some of the litmus tests for true investment compared to interested or even involved.

To improve the investment level of your team and even yourself, consider the following steps:

  1. Increase Participation

Seek out, solicit and allow more team member participation in key decisions, organizational direction and daily operations.  Nothing builds team member investment like participation.

  1. Increase Honest Communication

Share successes and challenges with team members.  When they are seeing both the good and the challenging, they are more likely to respond with higher commitment.

  1. Utilize Personal Loyalty

If you did your job as leader and built solid relationships with team members, you can now capitalize on those relationships to increase investment and move them out of interest.

  1. Don’t Judge Others Based on Your Investment

People arrive at the investment stage at different times and at different paces.  You might have achieved near instant investment and it may even be a part of your DNA.  Don’t be too anxious to judge others if they are more hesitant or reluctant to move that quickly.  They may have been burned by a bad boss.  They may have been swallowed in a corporate takeover after providing a high level of commitment.  Encourage them but let them arrive at investment at their own pace.

Tim Schneider from Aegis Learning

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

Transparency is the Golden Egg to Engagement

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

We hire smart people.  We trust people with lots of stuff, in some cases, millions of dollars of transactions.  We love to throw out words like empowerment and transparency and genuineness.

But when it comes to information, some organizations fail to trust that people can disseminate or handle the truth.  Veils of secrecy cover the comings and goings of team members, plans for growth, new systems and critical organizational changes.  Politely worded press releases take the place of honest and genuine communication with team members and the public.  Legal advice that is designed to eliminate any risk trumps real transparency.  The human resource function tells us we can’t say why someone is mysteriously gone.  A bevy of people in many companies like to play Hungry Hungry Hippo with the real story.

Transparency is the golden egg of organizational trust and team member engagement.  Conversely, lack of transparency is an extreme morale killer and gossip starter.  Some symptoms to look for in an unhealthy environment include:

  1. Lots of closed-door meetings.
  1. Way too much whispered conversations and huddling of leaders with no explanation.
  1. Silly explanations for people leaving (i.e. “Bob is pursuing new interests”)
  1. Unexpected and unannounced hiring and new jobs just popping up.
  1. Press coverage of events that surprise team members.
  1. Branding and marketing shifts that are unannounced.
  1. Total lack of any organizational or senior leader communication or visibility.
  1. Communication that is only weighted to highlight the good and never a discussion of issues or challenges.
  1. Over-reliance on legal advice to avoid any risk.
  1. Creation of insiders that tend to know things that the rest of a team does not know or is not privy to.
  1. Rampant gossip and rumors about people and the organization.
  1. Answering direct questions with avoidance and obfuscation. 

The correlation between organizational (and leadership) transparency and team member engagement and overall performance is undeniable, heavily documented and irrefutable.  Quite simply, the best organizations are transparent.  The best leaders are transparent within set boundaries and they often challenge those boundaries.  Transparent organizations perform better, have less gossip and rumors, have more engaged team members and trust their senior leaders on matters of strategic direction.

To build greater degrees of organizational and leadership transparency, work on the following:

  1. Challenge why a piece of information supposedly can’t be shared. Trust your team members with information and hold them accountable for improper disclosure.
  1. Communicate openly and with high frequency. Regular updates and newsletters are a good start.
  1. Seek input from team members during challenges and when issues arise.
  1. Share plans and planning processes with team members. Include them on strategic discussions and solicit their input on directional changes.
  1. Share all press releases with team members concurrently or before it hits the news.
  1. Share all current marketing and branding efforts before it becomes public.
  1. Avoid closed door meetings and discussions (unless laughter and fun are too loud).
  1. Eliminate creating insider information and sharing with a select few. If you can share with one, you can share with all.
  1. Kill gossip in its tracks.  Create a bright line about rumors about the company or people and rebuff attempts to share it with you.  Participation equates to endorsement, especially in a leadership position.
  1. Don’t tell part of a story or create a tease point.  If you can’t relay all of the information, don’t share any of it.
Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

The Intersection of Dreams and Comfort

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

The difference between dreamers and doers can best be summarized in a set of characteristics:  tolerance for risk and comfort with uncomfortable.

Everyone has dreams.  Everyone wants to be something a little different or better.  Everyone wants to contribute to a common good.  Many people even take it a step farther and label their dreams as a life passion, calling or purpose.  They create vision boards for where they want to be and even journal about a better life for them and their families.

“I really want to get a new job”

“I really want to go back to school”

“I really want to devote my life to something bigger and better”

“I really don’t want to be stuck in an eight-to-five grind”

Where these dreams come to a crashing halt for many is at the blinking-light intersection of risk and comfort.

“But I don’t want to give up my daily Starbucks”

“I’m can’t tell my wife I’m quitting my job to open my own business”

“The classes and studying will put a burden on my family time”

“I’m not about to start at a position lower than my last one”

Risk aversion can certainly become an evil little voice that continually reminds you of the potential for failure and all the negative “what ifs”.  Sadly, this voice rarely speaks to the potential positive outcomes associated with a leap towards your dreams or reminds you of the great satisfaction of doing what you were placed on this rock to do.  Highly successful people use self-talk to silence or reduce the impact of the voice of doom and actively replace it with the positive outcomes of risk taking.  Not that anyone should blindly leap into the unknown but the reminder that all unknowns have an equal or greater chance of being successful as becoming a failure.  The risk aversion voice also tends to overstate the failure outcomes as being horrible when in fact, they are nothing more than learning opportunities and everything is recoverable.

Comfort aversion is as damaging as risk aversion to living a purposeful and fulfilling life.  Now there is nothing wrong with being comfortable but over-emphasis on comfort will keep you in a complacent, non-growing, non-achieving spot.  The comfort lie tells us that some of our creature comforts and vanity desires have become needs.  The BMW instead of a Camry, Starbucks instead of Folgers, gated community instead of two-bedroom apartment, Ivy League instead of community college, designer purse over the JC Penny’s version.  Again, successful people will truly understand the difference between a core need and those items that simply create comfort.  Interestingly, those people in life that have failed and restarted several times have a clearer view of what is really needed versus those comforts that sometimes serve as obstacles to achieving our dreams.

Below are a couple of tactics to help improve risk and comfort tolerance:

  1. Identify What is Really a Need Versus a Want

Look at basics.  Return to an earlier time in your life and describe how you survived and with what.

  1. Take Small Risks

Develop risk tolerance by beginning with smaller risks prior to a big leap.  Note or journal the lessons from failures and the ease in overcoming and recovery.

  1. Commit

If you want to achieve a dream or purpose, commit to a course of action complete with timelines and measurable milestones. 

  1. Partner

Don’t be afraid to share your dreams with others.  Seek the support needed to reduce risk and get buy-in on changes to comfort.  Quite simply, ask the kids if they are okay with no cable TV or moving to a smaller house.

  1. Track Progress

Monitor, track and report your progress towards your dream.  Vision posters are nice but a formal system to track progress is where achievement rests.

Tim Schneider

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

Do Good or Do Nothing

Tim Schneider, Coach, Speaker, Author and Trainer from Aegis Learning

By Tim Schneider

About 15 minutes of cable news is all I can stand anymore.  I used to be a news junkie and keep up with current events but any reading or watching of the national political scene just turns my stomach.

Likewise, I have become familiar with a couple of incredibly toxic workplaces that when I hear the stories of extremely poor leadership, it just makes me sick.

The causation of this nausea is not the remarkably bad dinner in Eugene Oregon last night but rather the poor choices made by leaders to invest time, energy and effort in consciously and intentionally doing bad.  Don’t get me wrong here; we all do bad and make mistakes and exercise poor judgments and choices but not many people (sans politicians) consistently set out on a path of doing dumb things. 

In the case of toxic work environments, consider the amount of time, energy and emotional composition that is totally wasted in documenting, cross-emailing, complaining and filing grievances.  All because someone or a set of people have chosen to do bad instead of doing good.  Poor leaders concoct schemes to retaliate, get rid of someone, make another department look bad or to protect their own jobs and all at the expense of team members, morale and the general well-being of the workplace. 

And back on cable news, our elected officials (mostly national but also state and local) are engaged in a series of grandstanding, ridiculous hearings and posturing rather than doing what is best for their constituents.  Rather than good, they serve special interests and their political affiliations all the while that Rome is burning.

We have a choice every moment in our lives.  To do good, to do bad or to do nothing at all.  That choice becomes conscious and when we can spend a moment thinking about the consequences of our actions, we can learn to make better, and more aligned with the common good, decisions.

Interestingly, the choice of doing nothing in many cases is better than the choices of some leaders.  If doing good becomes impossible, then the decision to do nothing is by-far-and-away better than crafting a path for doing bad.  For reference, think about the savings in money and time if congressional hearings were vetted against serving a good purpose or for doing bad and focusing only on individual gain or glory.  How much angst could be saved if a toxic leader spent her time relationship building, providing positive feedback and empowering others rather than tearing down, conspiring and self-preserving?

To make some better choices, try the following:

  1. Analyze Motive

Understanding your own motives are clearly the first and most important step of making better decisions and choices.  Always asked my boys if they are telling on someone to get them in trouble or save them from trouble.  That simple question forced them to examine the motives of their actions and make more thoughtful decisions.  We too can examine why we are choosing a course of action but that take a hefty amount of emotional intelligence and self-regulation.  Really reflect on why you are choosing the path or direction.

  1. Test Against Mission

Check your choices against the mission, vision and core values of the organization.  This should provide ample guidance in most cases.  It’s hard to justify the harassment of a team member when an organizational core value is to treat team members well and fairly. 

  1. Test for Value to Others

Look to see if your decision or choice benefits others and not just you.  There is a time and place for a self-caring choice but not in a role of leadership or public service.

  1. Test for Unintended Consequences

Diagnose and spend some time thinking about what some unintended consequences might occur from your choice.  This is enhanced even more when you engage #5 below.

  1. Seek Input

Ask for some feedback from trusted and wise sources before storming off on your own decision.  This input can save a lot of time and energy and keep you from making some bad choices.

An above and beyond all of those, be a deliberate responder and not a reactor.  Use some time, take a pause and then choose to either do good or do nothing at all. 

An Aegis Learning Customer

Tim Schneider is the founder, CEO and lead facilitator for Aegis Learning.  

Celebrating Leaders-EduCode 2019

15th Year of Leadership Learning with EduCode

Aegis Learning was privileged and honored to provide a week-long leadership development track for EduCode 2019.  

Our 15th year with EduCode had the biggest groups yet with some classes at over 80 participants!!

Special recognition to the really awesome people who took the entire series and spent 40 hours in immersed leadership learning.  Great job!

EduCode 2019 Leadership Track from Aegis Learning
EduCode 2019 Leadership Track from Aegis Learning
EduCode 2019 Leadership Track from Aegis Learning