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by Rick Baker
On Aug 31, 2011
People have two types of feelings: good feelings and bad feelings.
When you feel good your emotions are letting you know your actions and the situation at hand are in synch with your personal values and your goals. When you feel bad your emotions are letting you know your actions and the situation at hand are not in synch with your personal values and your goals.
In certain situations, as you walk down certain paths, your logical side will work hard to explain away or resist the feelings generated by your emotions. Your logical side will tell you there is nothing to fear, yet you will continue to feel fear.
Using the Haidt metaphor, the Rider will tell the Elephant it’s just a little, tiny mouse. It cannot harm a huge Elephant like you. Yet, Elephants fear mice…let’s assume that’s fact. You know what will happen. The Elephant will panic and bolt.
Fear: that’s an extreme bad feeling.
Hopefully, it rarely shows up in your workplace.
Let’s use the Haidt metaphor to look at a less-extreme example. Say, it’s a real simple thing. You want a person to do a task for you. You make it a simple task…the task is walking down a path. And, you politely say to the person, “Would you please help me by walking down the path.” The person does nothing.
No matter what the Rider did, the Elephant just kept eating grass.
Why did the Elephant keep doing that?
Answer: the Elephant felt good…Elephants place a lot of personal value on eating grass…it helps them sustain life, an important goal for Elephants.
Getting back to the task you tried to assign, but failed…
- You asked a person to walk down a path
- The person did not walk down a path
Now what are you going to do?
2 pieces of advice:
“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudice, and motivated by pride and vanity.”
Dale Carnegie
“Take the trouble to stop and think of the other person's feelings, his viewpoints, his desires, and needs. Think more of what the other fellow wants, and how he must feel.”
Maxwell Maltz
by Rick Baker
On Aug 24, 2011
Some successful leaders favour a fun, kind, and calm work environment.
U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower said:
“A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done”.
Some successful leaders favour a serious, hard-driving, and formal work environment. Henry Ford comes to mind. Some claim Henry Ford fired people for smiling during working hours.
The important thing: your work environment must align with your personal values and your personality. Otherwise, sooner or later, you will lose patience and enthusiasm. With the loss of patience and enthusiasm…it will be tough to enjoy your work. In simple words: you will feel bad about work. That will remove the possibility of major business success. To make matters worse, it will cause dysfunction to grow and spread. Stresses will erupt. Attitudes and behaviours will become troubling, quite uncomfortable, and possibly even vicious.
You want none of these things.
Right!
You want your people to co-operate with one another and get along.
Right!
You want to enjoy your workday.
Right!
So, what do you need to do to bring that about and make sure it remains?
Let’s start with a seek simple thought: people only have two types of emotions/feelings.
- Some emotions cause people to feel good
- Some emotions cause people to feel bad
Yes, some emotions such as utter bliss or supreme joy make us feel much better than other emotions such as mildly amused and pleased. Similarly, feeling enraged is more extreme than feeling impatient or annoyed.
You can make your interpersonal activities simpler and more effective if you can accurately identify good feelings from bad feelings. That’s an achievement. For the most part, it doesn’t matter how extreme the feelings are. It is the direction of the feelings that counts the most. Are they ‘good’ or ‘bad’?
Let’s be honest about our ability to read other people’s feelings.
When it comes to understanding other people’s feelings many of us are not very skilled. We struggle with understanding our own feelings let alone understanding other people’s feelings.
So let’s start by looking at feelings only 2 ways: feelings are either (1) Good or (2) Bad.
by Rick Baker
On Aug 16, 2011
Business Leader
How do you feel?
We have found: if you generally feel good then you have a greater chance to inspire followers and you have a greater chance to achieve the business profits you desire.
Feel Better – Inspire People – Grow Profits
The first step – measure your feelings.
How?
We recommend leaders use a Minus10-to-Plus10 Scale, where:
- A Score of Minus10 means I feel absolutely horrible, couldn’t be feeling any worse than this
- A Score of 0 means I don’t register any good feelings or bad feelings
- A Score of Plus10 means I am absolutely ecstatic, never been more pumped up in my life
People will score their feelings higher some days. Some activities will receive higher scores than others. Some situations will cause the score to rise. Some situations will cause the score to drop. When situations change the score could change radically…for example, consider the impact of surprises…pleasant surprises tend to generate good/positive feelings, not-so-pleasant surprises tend to generate bad/negative feelings.
No business leader scores Plus10 all day long. Rather, under normal business situations, leaders’ feelings fluctuate between a high and a low. And, over time their feelings fluctuate above and below their average score. Leaders who are truly happy sorts tend to feel better about almost everything they experience during their workdays. So, their average scores are high. They might assess themselves at an average score of Plus8.
Stress tends to reduce scores.
When leaders experience sustained high-stress levels their scores can drop significantly….and remain low, perhaps even in Minus territory.
When a leader’s score drops the leader becomes less productive and frequently this is clearly evident to the leader’s people, clients, suppliers, and business allies. That has a negative impact on business. And, that has a negative impact on business profitability.
Our goal is: to help business leaders feel even better.
Feel Better – Inspire People – Grow Profits
by Rick Baker
On Aug 9, 2011
Logic faces a life-long battle to control emotions
Have you ever ridden an elephant?
If not, pretend for a moment you are doing just that. You are sitting about 10 feet above the ground, on the top of an elephant. The elephant is not huge, only about 3,000 pounds. Regardless, when you compare your sizes; that means: the elephant is big and you are small. On average, elephants weigh about 40 times as much as people.
So, here you are sitting on top of the biggest creature on land. It has its head down and it is eating some grass. You say giddee up in an effort to cause the elephant to move ahead on the path. The elephant keeps eating the grass. You say giddee up a little louder. The elephant keeps eating the grass. You really raise your voice and holler out giddee up. The elephant keeps eating the grass. You really don’t like to hit animals…so you are tentative about using the switch you were given. But, after a few more hollers you decide to give the elephant a gentle tap with the switch. You yell giddee up and at the same time you swat the elephant with the switch. The elephant keeps eating the grass. You keep doing that routine for a while…all to no avail. The elephant just keeps on eating the grass. You finally give up and turn your mind to thinking, how can I get off this elephant? It’s a long way down to the ground. As you are giving that some thought you notice, out of the corner of your eye, a little movement at the side of the path. You turn your head to focus on it…a little grey mouse. Isn’t that cute, a mouse…way out here in the middle of nowhere. Before that thought has time the settle the earth begins to shake. No wait, it isn’t the earth, it’s the elephant. Then there’s this deafening trumpet sound. Its sound bangs into your ears at the same time the head and trunk of the elephant stretch so far back the trunk conks you square in the forehead. It delivers such a wallop that you end up falling off the elephant and crashing down on the grassy path below. While that’s happening the elephant is running full speed ahead. Through your dizzy fog, you marvel at it…who would have thought an elephant could run so fast.
People behave like Riders on Elephants on Paths.
That’s a metaphor created by Dr. Jonathan Haidt.
- The Rider represents our Logical side.
- The Elephant represents our Emotional side.
- The Paths represents the Situations we face.
As the story above illustrates:
- The Rider has little control over the Elephant…like our Logic has little control over our Emotions
- Situations play a huge role in Elephants behaviour…as do Emotions in people’s behaviour
by Rick Baker
On Aug 3, 2011
Sales Tweet # 273 A Rule for Elephants: "Whatever you feel compelled to do, don’t."
The Thinking Behind the Sales Tweet
If Tony Schwartz met Jonathan Haidt then that could be the topic they discuss. The quote above is from Tony Schwartz’s book ‘The Way We’re Working ISN”T WORKING’ and Jonathan Haidt is the author of ‘The Happiness Hypothesis’. In that book, Haidt likens people’s behavior to Riders, on Elephants, on Paths…where riders are our logical side, Elephants are our emotional side, and Paths are the situations we face. [Elephants can be very compelling.]
by Rick Baker
On Jul 20, 2011
We don't bother to measure our feelings and emotions.
At least most of us, most of the time, don't measure our feelings and emotions.
That's not to say we don't 'register' our feelings and emotions. And, that's not to say we don't behave in accordance with our feelings and emotions.
We do those things.
We do register the fact we feel this way or that. And, we do recognize our feelings and emotions play a role in what we do.
We just don't measure what's going on.
Maybe we are generally content with our feelings and emotions...so, why bother analysing them or taking the time to measure them?
Maybe we don't think we can do much about our feelings and emotions...like, they happen and that's it?
Maybe we've thought of measuring our emotions and feelings but couldn't quickly identify how that might be done...then, we got busy and that thought slipped away?
Regardless, maybe today we are thinking it would be a good idea to figure out a way to measure our emotions and feelings.
If that's something you’d like to do then there are simple ways to do it.
About a dozen years ago Brian Tracy recommended a technique which is simple and helpful. He recommended a scale from Minus10-to-Plus10.
- a rating of ‘Minus 10’ means you have the most negative possible feeling about the situation at hand. As examples...utter disgust and raging anger
- a rating of ‘Zero’ is absolutely neutral...take it or leave it
- a rating of ‘Plus 10’ is the most positive feeling about the situation. As examples…sheer bliss and pure love
I like the Minus10-to-Plus10 approach much better than any other 'yardstick' for measuring emotions/feelings.
A Minus10-to-Plus10 approach forces us to accept the reality of negatives and positives.
It also makes sure we do not lose track of the fact, when you boil it down, we only have 2 types of emotions:
- Emotions that make us feel Good
- Emotions that make us feel Bad
That helps remove all the mumbo jumbo about optimists versus pessimists. Everyone experiences Good feelings and everyone has Bad feelings.
A Minus10-to-Plus10 approach also allows us a wide enough range to make and be pleased about baby-steps of improvement.
It’s easy to give and receive advice like, "Your problem is you don't have a positive mental attitude. Think positive and all will be well."
On the other hand, that's not really very practical. To alter our feelings, if our goal is to have more good feelings then, we need to overcome deeply ingrained Bad Habits...some of which we know and can identify...and some of which are deeply rooted in our subconscious.
While we may never uncover the deep roots of habits we can always register and measure our feelings and emotions.
Using a Minus10-to-Plus10 Scale© we can calibrate any and all our feelings [or emotions if you prefer to describe it that way]. Some of this goes without saying...catastrophes can generate extreme frustration or anger or compassion or grief, etc. Other feelings and emotions, the ones that we experience throughout every waking moment of every day, are more subtle and their root causes are less clear. Regardless, the feelings and emotions influence what we do next...they influence how we feel next…and, repeating, they influence what we do next. And, they generate patterns of behaviour that show up later...including years later.
We can choose the behaviours we desire then create those behaviours.
We can use the Minus10-to-Plus10 Scale© to create those behaviours.
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