Browsing Category Uncategorized

Welcome to Bob Faw’s Energize Performance blog. Bob’s passion is to guide positive transformation. Through his personal and professional life experiences Bob developed a keen interest in pragmatic and science based approaches. He has been a longtime advocate of focusing on solutions and learning while having fun, concepts that are increasingly supported by recent neuroscience studies about enhanced brain functioning and performance. This blog is to gather and share his guidance and share best practices, inspirational examples, and creative ideas of others about positive transformation at work, in personal life, and in the world.

Ho Ho Ho Instead of Ho Hum

December 17, 2015 · by Bob Faw

Priming Yourself and Others During the Holidays

Regardless of what you celebrate, this season can be stressful. Thinking about buying the perfect gifts, putting up magazine-worthy decorations, creating magical evenings with family, and hosting fun-filled parties is enough to make anyone feel some anxiety.

Yet if you look at the deeper meaning of the holidays, most people will agree that it’s about love, family togetherness, and meaningful connections. How we relate to each other is what makes the biggest difference. I want to talk about how to genuinely achieve what you’re looking for this holiday season, instead of merely the appearance of it.

When I was a kid Christmases were often disappointing to me. There was a lot of hype, but stress and family drama overshadowed our holiday activities, and I didn’t end up feeling the love and warmth that I’d hoped, even though we went through all the motions of what “you’re supposed to do.”

Here are a few tips to help you determine what is most important this holiday season, and to organize your time and energy around it:

Simplify the Season

The simpler you can make the holidays, the more enjoyable they will be. If you aren’t focusing on the endless to do list you’ve created, you will have more time for genuine connections with your family—those that build great memories.

The most important thing is to make sure that the time you spend as a family is comfortable and happy. (So try to minimize exposure to that uncle who always gets drunk at dinner and rants about politics.) But in all seriousness, a holiday with fewer conflicts and less stress is better for everyone.

People often make gifts the center of the holiday, but making it about “things” only creates superficial happiness. Studies show that gifts only create a spike in happiness, and the level of happiness quickly goes back to where it was before the gift was given. Conversely, research has shown that experiencing fun and meaningful events together creates more lasting happiness.

Positive memories come from doing special things for and with each other, rather than from buying things for each other. When you focus more on the person than on the gift, it is far more powerful and sustainable than any material item.

Focus on Feelings

I want to suggest something that may be radical: This season, take some time to step back with your family and think about how you want to feel about each other during the holidays and afterward. Then talk about the traditions and activities that have fostered those feelings in the past. Also, discuss what you might be able to cut out this season to make it simpler and more enjoyable for all.

When holiday rituals begin to take on a life of their own, people stop enjoying them. Get rid of any tradition that causes more stress than joy. It’s okay for traditions to change and evolve as the years go by. Don’t be afraid to change traditions if they cause too much stress or don’t make people feel closer.

Instead focus on small traditions and activities that mean a lot to people right now. It doesn’t matter what mattered ten years ago, what mattered in your childhood, or what you think you should do. If you have children, allow them to choose a tradition that they enjoy; it will have much more meaning than your choosing for them.

This is helpful whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanza or any other holiday. If you make sure the focus is on deepening your connections with family, every other part of your holiday will benefit because the true magic is the love.

Sometimes we have a tendency to believe that doing and giving more around the holidays will increase happiness. This is especially true with parents; it’s natural to want to give our children everything we can. But the truth is that all they need is one or two things done well. Simple yet meaningful activities like driving around looking at Christmas lights, making and enjoying a favorite food, lighting a candle, or talking about the highlights of the year can be some of the most lasting memories of the season.

Prime for Peace

This holiday season, try priming yourself to be in the kind of mood where your presence is a gift. You can help yourself have a great attitude for the holidays by thinking about what you have loved most about past holidays, and replaying those great memories and the feelings associated with them whenever you need a boost. Think about why the holidays are important to you. This type of priming helps improve your mood and your outlook.

Priming can also help you navigate the stress and the emotions of the season brought on by other people. For example, when you hit the stores you may experience frenetic crowds and chaotic shopping, and when you get back home those feelings can spill over into what you’re doing with your family.

Priming yourself before you get into situations that you know will be hectic can help as well. Thinking about what you love about the season, and trying to carry that joy with you, even when you’re out on traffic-filled roads, will keep you in better spirits. And don’t forget to give yourself enough time (again by simplifying!) so you don’t become one of those people who stresses other people out.

Another great way to prime is to think about somebody who is wonderful to be around during the holidays. What is it that makes you admire that person and what can you emulate? I’m not talking about somebody who looks perfect on the outside; choose someone who brings an authentic and caring presence whenever you see them. It’s so easy to get caught up in appearances, and it’s easy to accidentally get negatively primed by what other people appear to be doing and judge yourself poorly by comparison.

Redesigning your holidays to create joy, peace, and love in your family can be simple. Determine what you can do to enhance the feeling of connection as much as possible, so that everyone can go into the following year with a momentum of love and support.

Have a wonderful holiday season! I would love to hear about some of your favorite ideas to make the holidays more joyful and less stressful. Just comment below or connect with me on social media to share.

Like this:

Like Loading...

Like Trying to Hug a Cloud–Tips for Priming to Enhance Culture

December 8, 2015 · by Bob Faw

Culture is a vague concept, like a cloud. Yet its affects are as real as rain. Culture is a combination of the beliefs, values and behaviors that happen whether or not we want them to. On a day-to-day basis, culture is what really happens behind closed doors. It’s how people authentically behave, as well as the expectations of what will be rewarded and punished. Think about your company and where there are differences between what leaders say should be done, and what is actually done.

Because culture is so ingrained and mostly unconscious, initiating major shifts in it can be a challenge. It’s a little bit like trying to hug a cloud. Simply put, you can’t control the culture of a group. You can only influence it. Here I’m going to give you some tips on how to positively influence your culture.

Rewards and Punishments

In most work settings, there is a system of punishment and reward that is formally (or informally) understood. The metrics that companies use to determine punishment and reward may be helping achieve a certain business goal, but these metrics will also have an impact on your culture—either positive or negative. Statistically speaking, I bet there’s at least one behavior rewarded at your company that also pushed some bad results.

What people are allowed to get away with is also a big factor in terms of culture. There are plenty of smaller issues at work that usually don’t receive formal punishment. Behaviors such as acting rudely during a meeting, avoiding conflict, or disrespecting coworkers or customers will affect culture if left unattended. These types of behaviors need to be addressed quickly. Don’t let it grow! It’s also important to not only tell them what not to do, but how to do it well.

The system for promotions or rewards is also a key part of company culture. If companies promote people solely because they achieve goals, ignoring whether they are team players or have leadership skills, the culture will reflect that. And the other employees will notice it too. More and more research shows that when you promote people who are poor team players, even though they get things done, the end result is more damaging than helpful to the company. The invisible damage to the culture of people acting like jerks usually ends up reducing productivity in many ways that leaders don’t notice. I bet you’ve seen that happen plenty of times.

With culture problems people usually spend most of the time attacking what they perceive as the problems making it worse. That’s helpful in extreme, obvious cases. However, one of the most powerful ways to strengthen a culture is having regular conversations with people to identify what is best about the company—and encouraging employees to have these conversations with one another as well. This primes everyone’s brains, reminding them what to do more of, and what to improve in a motivating way. A great way to start these conversations, and to involve the team in a culture shift, is with our adapted positive change questions:

What kind of culture will help us to be more profitable and to have higher morale?
What are the key aspects to the culture we want?
What are we currently doing to build the foundation of that type of culture?
What actions will make our company a better place to work if they are rewarded more?
How can we reward these behaviors in ways that motivate all people?

To energize positive change, employees need the confidence that they can improve the culture, as well as ideas for what to do and how to do it. Start by building on the answers to the positive change questions and brainstorming ideas for implementation. You can’t just give your team ideas; they need to help come up with the ideas for a true culture shift to occur.

It’s really important to start by building on what is good. If you go straight to the gaps in the culture, it will bring everyone down. The next step is to change reward systems based on the input you get. I bet you can think of times you were included in the decision making that make you feel more ownership and motivation.

One of the biggest shifts we’re seeing in the business world today is the trend toward getting rid of annual performance reviews, or at least augmenting them with regular conversations. The theory behind this is that constant dialogue—both positive and constructive feedback in the moment—is more effective than one annual conversation reviewing the year’s performance, particularly focused on a single number, rather than all the factors involved in good performance and culture. Regular exchanges allow changes and improvements to be made instantly—not to mention the encouraging feelings and positive attitudes that result from praise. This is essentially using regular priming to direct people and influence culture.

Another great way to influence culture is to use a tip from The One Minute Manager and to “catch people doing things right”. This is a powerful priming tool catching people doing things right—and commenting in the moment—and providing feedforward on how to do things better in the future. Research shows that this is much more effective than telling people what they did wrong later.

October 22, 2015 · by Bob Faw

How to Be Your Best Self on That Tough Phone Call

Take the time to prepare. One of the challenges that come from a hectic work schedule is that we usually jump on phone calls, often without getting ourselves ready for the conversation. Going in unprepared usually just causes more time in putting fires out, instead of just taking a couple minutes to organize your thoughts beforehand.

I used to be really ineffective during tough phone calls because I let my emotions get the better of me. I would speak too quickly, rush through my words, interject random thoughts, and regularly put my foot in my mouth. Sound familiar?

Most of the things we tend to say under stressful situations can backfire. If we’re not prepared for tough conversations, we can easily make the problem worse before it gets better. And being effective during a tough phone call is important because it’s live, versus email or another situation where you have time to consider and revise your message.

I’ve learned that the hard way many times. Here are a few things I do to positively prime and prepare myself for a good phone call:

First, prime yourself ahead of time by thinking about the common goals you have with the person you will be talking with. This puts you into a collaborative mind-frame, and shows in your tone of voice, and even helps you choose more teamwork type words. To take it to the next level, think about what you most like or admire about the person you’re about to call. You may need to take a few minutes to develop regard for them, but it really does also help you be more thoughtful and respectful. This is particularly important if you’ve been focusing on problems.

Now, identify what the person most needs to hear to inspire them towards those common goals with you.

Don’t say things like, “Don’t take this wrong …” This statement negatively primes your listeners to “take wrong” what you’re going to say next. Instead focus on a good outcome and try to guide the call in the right direction, instead of trying to stop bad things from happening.

Don’t let your anxiety make you breathless and scattered. Determine what tone of voice the other person needs to hear to get them into the right mood. Take deep breaths to calm yourself and refocus on helping the other person.

Get physical. There are also ways to physically improve your confidence. This one makes sense if you’ve heard the research: Do a power pose. One example is the victory pose. Put your hands up in the air in a “V” as if you just won a sports contest. (Ideally do this in a place where not everyone is watching you J.) This affects your tone of voice and even the words you choose are more confident. Research says doing this for two minutes does it, but even thirty seconds works for me now that I’ve practiced. Another power pose is to put your arms behind your head and lean back in your chair.

October 7, 2015 · by Bob Faw

Like this:

Like Loading...

Page 3 of 8 « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 … 8 Next »