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Published On: Dec 22, 2003 02:57 PM
Total entries in this category:
Published On: Dec 22, 2003 02:57 PM
Standing Out in a Crowd
Edwin Friedman said that
self-differentiation is the most important leadership characteristic...so why is
it so hard?
The best you can hope for is to be well
differentiated 70% of the time, according to the venerable Rabbi. Why so tough?
Because emotion, rather than reason, is at the heart of our decision making
process.
We may react emotionally to a person, a situation, a sound, a scent, an image, even a circumstance because it is generally reminiscent of some trauma we experienced in the past, and the recognition is at the emotional level. Our memory for feelings may be even longer than our memory for fact; we might remember the feelings associated with a trauma far longer than we remember the events themselves. When a current event triggers a feeling for which we don't have an immediate memory, we may be inclined to think it's the current event causing the emotion rather than the earlier trauma that it resembles.
Another component in our difficulty remaining differentiated is our tendency to nurture patterns of expectation and disappointment. We become invested in the outcomes of our expectations, and if we see ourselves veering off course, we have an emotional reaction. For example, if we've gotten our hopes up about a raise, and the CFO reports that wages will be frozen for the coming year, our first reaction will generally be disappointment. Our initial coping strategies will be to cope with the disappointment, not to cope with the lack of a raise, so our behavior is likely to reflect that. We may find ourselves forming strategies to preserve or avoid a particular emotional sensation...we may substitute some other pleasure, or we may indulge in a bit of vindictiveness, all to distract ourselves from the disappointment that follows unfulfilled expectations.
There are other reasons, but these will do for now: emotional memory and unfulfilled expectations are so deeply ingrained in us that they're among the most difficult emotional reactions to manage and overcome. Do remember that persistence is a big factor here: if at first you don't succeed...
We may react emotionally to a person, a situation, a sound, a scent, an image, even a circumstance because it is generally reminiscent of some trauma we experienced in the past, and the recognition is at the emotional level. Our memory for feelings may be even longer than our memory for fact; we might remember the feelings associated with a trauma far longer than we remember the events themselves. When a current event triggers a feeling for which we don't have an immediate memory, we may be inclined to think it's the current event causing the emotion rather than the earlier trauma that it resembles.
Another component in our difficulty remaining differentiated is our tendency to nurture patterns of expectation and disappointment. We become invested in the outcomes of our expectations, and if we see ourselves veering off course, we have an emotional reaction. For example, if we've gotten our hopes up about a raise, and the CFO reports that wages will be frozen for the coming year, our first reaction will generally be disappointment. Our initial coping strategies will be to cope with the disappointment, not to cope with the lack of a raise, so our behavior is likely to reflect that. We may find ourselves forming strategies to preserve or avoid a particular emotional sensation...we may substitute some other pleasure, or we may indulge in a bit of vindictiveness, all to distract ourselves from the disappointment that follows unfulfilled expectations.
There are other reasons, but these will do for now: emotional memory and unfulfilled expectations are so deeply ingrained in us that they're among the most difficult emotional reactions to manage and overcome. Do remember that persistence is a big factor here: if at first you don't succeed...
Posted: Thu - December 11, 2003 at 09:16 AM