self-awareness
15 Ways to Break the Law of the Instrument
Psychologist Abraham Maslow once famously remarked: “When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” That’s known as The Law of the Instrument – and many of us have one or two well-worn instruments, tools, and approaches that we use to help our colleagues, friends and family solve problems.
I know this first-hand: A decade ago after I graduated from coaching school I realized that my version of The Law of the Instrument was, “When what you are is a coach, every problem looks coachable.” Since one of the most useful tools in the coaching toolkit is curiosity, I asked a lot of questions. I mean, a LOT of questions. It got to the point that I would ask my kids, “How was your day at school?” or “What would you like for dinner?” and would hear, in response, “Are you trying to coach me???”
Point taken. Even though Albert Einstein himself said, “The important thing is not to stop questioning,” the people around me said, “Please give your questioning a rest.”
Now, ten years and hundreds of clients later, I now have a wide range of instruments that I can use to be helpful, depending on whether someone wants direction, advice, support, empathy, instruction, problem-solving or yes, coaching. And it took a lot of work to cultivate a toolkit where I could feel equally comfortable pulling out any instrument and using it well. But the most important development for me was not assuming that I knew what help my client, colleague, friend or kid wanted or needed, but offering them a robust list of helpful approaches from which they could choose. Chances are, you have one or two well-worn instruments that you use regularly (such as problem-solving or brainstorming) and it might be time for you to add some new ones to your toolkit.
You might like the feel of a new instrument in your hand – and you might be able to help the people you work, volunteer and live with might have a breakthrough that wouldn’t have been possible with the tools you’ve been using.
Ready to break the Law of the Instrument? Here is my list of 15 new ones to offer:
- Listen without judgment
- Ask open-ended questions
- Play “Devil’s Advocate”
- Brainstorm 50 new ideas
- Empathize
- Connect you to an expert in the field
- Teach you a skill
- Share my own experience/path
- Give a pep talk/cheerlead
- Help you prioritize
- Take notes while you download your thoughts
- Help you develop evaluation criteria
- Do it along side you
- Send you articles, videos and other resources
- Fix it for you
What are some other instruments you use? Post below.
The Sin I’m Committing Every Day
As you may know, I didn’t grow up with either a formal or informal Jewish education. I didn’t go to Hebrew school or celebrate the High Holidays. Until I was a teenager, I thought that Snow White ate the forbidden fruit. I am largely self-taught – a living version of “Everything I Wanted to Know About Jewish Living I Learned after Age 18.” And I am still constantly learning, evolving and growing.
This year, on Yom Kippur, I learned that:
- I am fine without caffeine until about 3 pm, and then I start to lose my mind.
- I am inclined to replace the three meals I skipped with ten meals worth of noodle pudding, bagels and ice cream.
- I am guilty of a sin that I never realized was one, until I read the prayer book closely: the sin of clever cynicism.
What does it mean to be cynical? First of all, it’s not the same as skepticism. Where skeptics are open to having their thinking changed with new and compelling evidence, cynics aren’t. Cynics are distrusting or disparaging of others’ motives; they are contemptuous or pessimistic. The clever part? Thinking they’re being funny about it – especially if most people around them are cynical too. (Tweet this!)
How many of you have seen the famous New Yorker magazine cartoon of a businessman on the phone with the caption: “No, Thursday’s out. How about never—is never good for you?” It’s clever. It’s cynical. And it’s the kind of language and attitude that now permeates far too many of our conversations, whether we’re talking about our community-based organizations (“ ‘They’ know how to find me, especially if I haven’t made my annual pledge yet”), to our colleagues (“Looks like no good deed goes unpunished around here”), family (“I’d agree with you but then we’d both be wrong.”) or politics (too many examples to name!).
I’m cleverly cynical far too often to pretend that the prayer book was written just for other people. I also know that I am not alone in making snarky remarks that demonstrate a mistrust of others’ motives, and then wait for the nods and smiles of my peers that make me feel like what I said was smart and socially acceptable. The sad part is that it IS socially acceptable to be cleverly cynical. (Tweet this!) And whether you are cleverly cynical yourself or just tolerating it by suffering in silence, you’re in it with me.
I don’t know if I can change the clever cynicism of the political landscape or even the organizations that I consult with. But I can change my own outlook. Here are three things I am committed to doing:
- Be more compassionate. When I operate under the assumption that people are doing the best they can with what they have, I cut people more slack, and feel empathetic about their challenges. Lord knows, that’s what I would want people to do for me.
- Be more “pronoid.” Paranoia is when we believe that people are out to harm us, whereas pronoia is when we believe that people are conspiring to make good things happen for us. (Tweet this!) If I have to make something up, I’m choosing that perspective!
- Call people on their clever cynicism – gently but directly. When I hear a remark, I’ll ask, “What did you mean by that?” and see if I can help coach someone to get to the heart of their message AND to put a little more heart into their message.
Will it work? The clever cynic in me would surely have SOME quip to make about it. But the kinder, gentler, less cynical me would just smile and say, “I hope so. I have faith.”
To Your Success without the Tsuris,
Deb
p.s. Despite a late start, I am clearly now an “ambassador” for Jewish living, learning and life – the same kind of ambassador you want your staff and volunteers to be for your organization! Want to learn more about how to do that? Join us for our upcoming webinar “How to Be an Ambassador for Your Organization” on Thursday October 8th at 1 pm Eastern – and bring everyone on your team to learn with us!
A New Year of Positive Thinking
Having a positive workplace doesn’t mean waking up to your alarm clock playing Pharrell Williams’s “Happy” song every morning, nor does it mean greeting your colleagues with a “welcome to Disneyworld!” smile every day. This is not always perceived positive, and in fact, it can be downright annoying. However, when your work culture isn’t positive, it has a direct affect on your physical and emotional life. Cultivating a positive workplace requires first understanding that without it, work becomes meaningless, motivation drops and engagement disappears.
Positivity allows for creativity, big picture thinking and openness to new ideas, which leads to a successful organization.
I first learned about positive thinking as a child from my father who created a very special bedtime ritual (which I’ve adopted with my girls years later). Every night, my father would ask me “Noa, what kind of dream would you like to have tonight?” In most cases, my answer was to live in a candy store! At that point, my dad would pretend that there was an invisible zipper on my forehead which he would slowly unzip, and whisper my dream to my subconscious. Then he would hurry to zip up the invisible zipper so the dream wouldn’t escape and I would close my eyes and immediately immerse myself in thoughts of my candy store and everything that I get to do there and then I would fall into a sweet sleep.
So what do dreams of endless candy have to do with having a positive mindset at work? I learned that being able to “choose” my dreams as a child developed into having the ability to choose my thoughts as well as my moods as an adult. Positivity is, in fact, both a mindset and a skillset. We can all cultivate positivity through the choices we make, the perspectives we choose, the behaviors we engage in, the conversations we have, as well as those who choose not to engage in.
While it is much easier to have a positive outlook when times are good, it’s even more important to focus on positive thinking when things go wrong. Many of us have serious and urgent problems. We experience disappointments, heartaches, rejections, and stress on a daily basis. While we don’t want to pretend that our problems aren’t real , “sugar coat” them or withdraw into denial, we can still approach solutions in a positive manner.
Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage and Before Happiness explains that stress is an inevitable part of work. It can be obstacle to growth but it can also be the fuel for it.
His suggestion to working stress in a positive manner is to make a list of all the stresses you’re under and place them in two groups – the ones you can control (unfinished tasks, inbox) and those you can’t control (the stock market, politics in Iran). You then are being asked to choose one stress that you can control and come up with a small, concrete step you can take to reduce it. This is what signals your brain to shift to a positive, productive mind-set.
Most people believe that success preceded happiness. “Once we reach our campaign target, then I’ll be happy”, or “Once I lose 10 pounds, then I’ll be happy”. However success is a moving target – as soon as we hit our target, we raise it again and the happiness that results from success is gone.
Similarly to training our muscles at the gym, recent research on neuroplasticity, shows that it is not so different than training our brain to be more positive.
Here are a few things that we all can do each day to help our brain cultivate more positivity in our work and life:
- Writing down three things we are grateful for.
- Acknowledging someone else for doing/being good.
- Exercise for 10-30 minutes.
- Meditate anywhere for two minutes.
- Describe in a journal the most meaningful experience of the past 24 hours in a journal.
Even by choosing one of the above as a new habit and repeat it for three weeks, will show improvement in your levels of positive and engagement.
Growing up in the 1970s, neither my dad or I knew anything about “positive psychology” and the “happiness factor”, but somehow, we knew how to apply these principles.
As you are gearing up for a new day at work, remember that you can’t have a positive work environment with a negative mind. Training your brain to look for the positive outcomes in each situation and your positive contribution to taking one step towards solution will help you enormously in cultivating a positive day.
When Are We Home?
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In my last blog I shared that “I lived in seven different countries and felt at home in each one ofthem”. Many of you followed up by asking me, how is that possible. That question triggered a conversation with my daughter, about “which one is really home?”.
Split Personality: Are you different at work vs at home?
I stood in front of the mirror sweating in a 105 degree Yoga studio. It’s the same spot I stand in everyday but today I noticed something different about this spot. The mirror split my body right down the center. I had stood their countless other times but today for some reason I noticed it and it struck me as odd. I’m not sure if the heat was getting to me or the Buddhist motivation the teacher was dishing out but either way I became very philosophical at that moment. My body was split and I realized that I often feel like two different people.A Taste of My Own Medicine
This past Monday, I had surgery. I knew it was coming – in fact, I put it off for three months so I could be with my kids during vacation, dance at my friend’s wedding, and make good on my business travel commitments. Very strategic of me, I must say. When the doctor told me to expect 1-2 weeks of recovery if there were no complications, I thought she meant for other people. I recalculated her time estimate for “Deb-Time” (which means compulsively early and lightening fast) and began scheduling phone meetings for less than 48 hours post-surgery, i.e. TODAY.
How’s that working out for me? Well, score 1 for the doctor, 0 for the coach.
Last night, amidst the joy of receiving fruit baskets, Godiva chocolates and a bag of prunes from a great friend who, shall we say, knew too well what was to come, I started cancelling my appointments. My throat was still scratchy from the breathing tube, my stomach muscles hurt too much to talk, and since many of my clients are deliciously funny, I knew that a single bout of agonizing laughter could send me back to the hospital. The immediate problem is that I didn’t give myself the time I needed to recover – despite being told by a professional who knew her stuff. The bigger problem is that I missed a fundamental strategic step in coaching that I use with my clients – and ignored with myself: Anticipating Roadblocks.
It’s all well and good to know what you want, and to develop a plan for getting there. I wanted to get back to work and figured that by booking my clients, I would have to will myself to recover faster than I might otherwise. But I forgot to ask myself the question that I would have asked any client: “what could get in the way?” For me, it was that I wouldn’t feel better in time for my appointments, and the consequence is that I have to do what I wish I didn’t have to: cancel my meetings. It would have been better to have given myself the whole week (yes, Dr. Kastner, I know — or TWO whole weeks) to renew, recharge and recover, and start fresh rather than making up for missed meetings.
So enough about me (but fruit baskets, chocolate and prunes are still welcome!): Think about a plan or process you’re getting ready to embark on. What roadblocks could get in your way? And how can you reengineer your plan to get around them, through them, over them, avoid them, or even use them to your advantage?
Keep me posted – I’m not going anywhere for a while!
To your Success without the Tsuris,
Deborah
https://www.myjewishcoach.com/
https://myjewishcoach.com/
