Who is “we?”  Have you ever heard statements like these at home and work:  “We should really do something about that!” “We need to make a decision‚” “We should get this done by Friday‚” “We need to do a better job of keeping the house clean.”

“We” has you leaving the conversation wondering who’s we, and whose doing what?  It also can be interpreted as a passive tactic, of not asserting what you really feel/think/believe, or a defensive move for avoiding conflict or responsibility.  Either way, it leads to miscommunication.

So here is what you can do if “we” shows up in conversation.   First, trust intentions.  Stay curious, wanting and waiting to listen and understand.  Second, openly, and without opinion or assumption, ask for clarification.  (If you’ve already formed an opinion, judgment or assumption, it’s tough to be truly open.)

If you have been trained in the Process Communication Model (PCM), you know we are also talking about using appropriate parts and channels (what’s in front of you?) in how you ask for clarification.

Rest assured that if you do nothing, “we” will keep hanging around and tasks will never get completed… because “we” doesn’t do anything.  A frog could get more done.  If you want to know more about the PCM, give us a shout. Ribbit.

Submitted by:

About every three years we get one of those storms in Kansas that dumps several inches of rain in an hour or two.  Streets are like rivers, ditches are overflowing onto the streets, and yards look like lakes.  If your gutters aren’t flowing freely, rainwater will run over the edges, right down the side of your foundation, and flood your basement in a hurry.  Even the best sump pumps struggle to keep up.

Miraculously, I’m still alive.  Never mind that there were two or three HUNDRED sunny days when I could have safely cleaned my gutters.  Somehow I seem to get motivated only when tragedy is imminent, and I put myself at high risk to fix the situation.

Is this how you tend to your gutters?  Do you let the little leaves and debris in your life pile up until there’s a crisis?  Do you wait to fix things until doing so puts you in danger?  Maybe you procrastinate, avoid, or just dismiss the little things that aren’t fun, take a little extra effort, or sidetrack you from the important things of the day.  Most likely, the clogged gutters in your life cause even the small rains to soak your basement.

Today, make a commitment to clean your gutters.  Maybe it’s a messy desk, an apology that’s long overdue, a software upgrade, quality time with your kids.  Take time out of your sunny day to joyfully and mindfully clean the gutters of your life so that when it rains AND pours, you can stay inside and enjoy the safety and comfort of your home.

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And how sad that we so often believe that the star is “out there,” just beyond our reach.  When you stop focusing on expectations and begin focusing on what you want, you can be among the stars.

Start with these three steps:

Set your sights: What do you really want?  What have you been putting off because it wasn’t practical, or too risky?  What have you been avoiding because it just seems “too out reach?”  Get clear, get focused, and get honest about what you really want.

Set your mind: Begin by becoming aware of all those negative and pessimistic messages in and around you telling you you can’t, you shouldn’t, or “you’d be better off playing it safe.”  Recognize that those messages come from fear, shame, and selfishness rather than owning your star-power and making a difference in the universe.

Set your course: Get moving.  Do something, anything, to begin working towards your star.

And remember, when you set your sights, your mind, and your course in-line with your dream, the stars are already within reach.  Where you end up is anybody’s guess!

What could the Magi’s gifts teach us about reaching our greatest potential?

Gold: Precious and worthy across all cultures and times, a gift fit for royalty.  Give yourself the gift of royalty.  You are worthy of great contribution, to pursue a a life of significance.  Believe in your value and your purpose.

Frankincense: Touted for its medicinal and soothing properties, herbalists say frankincense is calming, restorative, gently clarifying, and meditative.  Give yourself the gift of gentleness and patience.  It’s OK to take your time, restore yourself, gain clarity, and become inspired to realize your dreams.

Myrrh: While it has strong antiseptic and anti-inflammatory properties, Myrrh is most well-known as an embalming material for Egyptian mummies.  Myrrh signifies pain and death.  Growth usually requires death; part of you may have to die in order for the rest of you to flourish.  Give yourself the gift of letting go of the dead weight of old habits, behaviors, and beliefs.

To be your best self, take a lesson from the Magi and give yourself an Epiphany!
-NR

• More responsibility, less resentment
• More courage, less disappointment
• More ownership, less compliance
• More acceptance less judgment
• More honesty, less assuming
• 
More persistence, less aggression
• 
More trust, less control
• More creativity, less coercion
• More intention, less luck
• More asking, less wishing
• 
More mistakes, fewer failures
• More joy, less justifying
• 
More goals, fewer rules

- NR

In the coming year, look for the continuing evolution of PCM with Next Element.  Our passion is to help you communicate for a change!

-NR

Read Seth Godin’s entire blog post…

Tools vs insight

How is your vocabulary? It’s a vital tool, certainly. Do you know these words?
a, after, and, as, die, eternal, first, gets, gun, have, in, is, job, life, me, mouth, my, pushing, saying, step, that, the, to, Tyler, waiter, you.

How about these?
a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.

The first list contains every word in the opening lines from Fight Club, the second is the entire word list from Green Eggs and Ham.  Of course, neither you nor I wrote either of these, regardless of how well trained we are in what the words (the tools) mean.

Knowing about a tool is one thing. Having the guts to use it in a way that brings art to the world is another. Perhaps we need to spend less time learning new tools and more time using them.

from:  http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2011/12/tools-and-insight.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2Fsethsmainblog+%28Seth%27s+Blog%29

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An article in the November 28 issue of Time Magazine reported that 2 million people gave notice and left their jobs in September, the highest number of resignations since November 2008.  In this report, released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 44% of those who quit their job in the last year did so believing they would find a better opportunity elsewhere.

In April 2009 we published a white paper titled “Prepare for the future: Invest in your people”, (http://next-element.com/whitepapers/prepare-for-the-future-invest-in-your-people/) outlining the current statistics on job satisfaction and engagement, and emphasized the danger of taking employees for granted during a time when they have fewer alternatives. In the months following we published a series of papers sharing perspectives and strategies to value, engage, and motivate your best people so that when things turned around, you would have a loyal and prepared workforce.

We are happy that the economy is showing signs of recovery, and we are happy that employees are taking the risk to find workplaces that value and respect them. Through thick and thin, you can count on Next Element to offer resources for maximizing your best people, helping those who are struggling, and making the tough decisions along the way.

- NGR

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We are so excited to hit this critical mark! Many advisors have told us that most start ups don’t make it this far, and if they do – once they hit that three-year mark, success is much more attainable.

We have never questioned our ability to make it. And, since we chose not to participate in the recession, success has always been our only option.

We often get asked what is the secret to making it this far. It’s no secret. The keys to our success are integral to what we intend our clients to experience when working with us.  In no particular order of importance, here’s what we practice:

ACCEPT. First, we ACCEPT every one of our owners for who they are.  We all work differently, train differently, do social media differently, and the list goes on. The bottom line is that we ACCEPT all of our differences as wonderful and useful. And further, we do not judge those differences or put anyone in a box who thinks, acts or goes about business differently.

VALUE. Second, we VALUE everyone’s opinions. We may not agree and we not may follow each other’s advice every time. Still, we value and respect each person’s opinions.  We also invite all to share their opinions in staff meetings, emails, chats, or client feedback sessions. Opinions will always have a place.

HERE. Third, we want every one to be HERE. This may be via phone, Skype, e-mail, instant message or in-person. Wherever we are, we honor everyone’s presence and we want that presence.

HAPPEN. Fourth, we want to make it HAPPEN for Next Element. We want to make decisions as fast as our infrastructure will allow us. Then, once we have reached a goal or accomplished a task, we push on faster. Making things HAPPEN is not only important, it is a mandate for us all.

IDEAS. Fifth, we invite and entertain all IDEAS. We may not pursue all IDEAS. We may not use all IDEAS. Our intent though, is to have an open door policy on sharing all IDEAS – any time, any place, no matter how far out they are.

LIKE. Sixth, we LIKE each other for who we are. We are all different in how we live our lives. We are different in our approaches to faith, parenting, fashion, and work environments. We LIKE each other without condition. There are no strings attached at Next Element.

These six keys are something that we at Next Element follow and strive to put into practice every day. We also teach this to our clients and invite them to put this into practice.

These six keys, ACCEPT, VALUE, HERE, HAPPEN, IDEAS and LIKE are an integral part of why we are successful today and will be successful in the future.

Our first official staff meeting in our new office in 2008. (Nate was the photographer)

Your title is like a window of opportunity to connect, motivate, listen to understand, and model healthy conflict, which carries a responsibility beyond having the final say.

Do Happier People Work Harder?
By Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer
Published: September 3, 2011

Teresa Amabile, a professor at Harvard Business School, and Steven Kramer, an independent researcher, are the authors of “The Progress Principle.”

LABOR DAY is meant to be a celebration of work. Yet, on this Labor Day, few have reason to rejoice. Even those who have jobs.  The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which has been polling over 1,000 adults every day since January 2008, shows that Americans now feel worse about their jobs — and work environments — than ever before. People of all ages, and across income levels, are unhappy with their supervisors, apathetic about their organizations and detached from what they do. And there’s no reason to think things will soon improve.

Employee engagement may seem like a frill in a downturn economy. But it can make a big difference in a company’s survival. In a 2010 study, James K. Harter and colleagues found that lower job satisfaction foreshadowed poorer bottom-line performance. Gallup estimates the cost of America’s disengagement crisis at a staggering $300 billion in lost productivity annually. When people don’t care about their jobs or their employers, they don’t show up consistently, they produce less, or their work quality suffers.

Over the past decade, we researched the micro-level causes behind this macro-level problem. To gain real-time perspective into everyday work lives, we collected  nearly 12,000 electronic diary entries from 238 professionals in seven different companies. Our study charted each person’s psychological state each day, and asked respondents to describe one event that stood out during that day. Our analysis revealed their inner work lives — the usually hidden perceptions, emotions and motivations that people experience as they react to and make sense of events in their workdays.

The results were sobering. In one-third of the 12,000 diary entries, the diarist was unhappy, unmotivated or both. In fact, workers often expressed frustration, disdain or disgust. Our research shows that inner work life has a profound impact on workers’ creativity, productivity, commitment and collegiality. Employees are far more likely to have new ideas on days when they feel happier. Conventional wisdom suggests that pressure enhances performance; our real-time data, however, shows that workers perform better when they are happily engaged in what they do.

Managers can help ensure that people are happily engaged at work. Doing so isn’t expensive. Workers’ well-being depends, in large part, on managers’ ability and willingness to facilitate workers’ accomplishments — by removing obstacles, providing help and acknowledging strong effort. A clear pattern emerged when we analyzed the 64,000 specific workday events reported in the diaries: of all the events that engage people at work, the single most important — by far — is simply making progress in meaningful work.

As long as workers experience their labor as meaningful, progress is often followed by joy and excitement about the work. “This time it looks good! I feel more positive about this project and my work than I’ve felt in a long time,” one programmer wrote after she’d completed a small but difficult task. This kind of rich inner work life improves performance, which further supports inner work life — a positive spiral.

Unfortunately, many companies now keep head count and resources to a minimum and this makes progress a struggle for employees. Most managers don’t understand the negative consequences of this struggle. When we asked 669 managers from companies around the world to rank five employee motivators in terms of importance, they ranked “supporting progress” dead last. Fully 95 percent of these managers failed to recognize that progress in meaningful work is the primary motivator, well ahead of traditional incentives like raises and bonuses.

This failure reflects a common experience inside organizations. Of the seven companies we studied, just one had managers who consistently supplied the catalysts — worker autonomy, sufficient resources and learning from problems — that enabled progress. Not coincidentally, that company was the only one to achieve a technological breakthrough in the months we studied it.

Working adults spend more of their waking hours at work than anywhere else. Work should ennoble, not kill, the human spirit. Promoting workers’ well-being isn’t just ethical; it makes economic sense. Fostering positive inner lives sometimes requires leaders to better articulate meaning in the work for everyone across the organization. Sometimes, all that’s required is that managers address daily hassles and help with technical problems. If those who lead organizations — from C.E.O.’s to small-team leaders — believe their mission is, in part, to support workers’ everyday progress, we could end the disengagement crisis and, in the process, lift our work force’s well-being and our economy’s productivity.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/do-happier-people-work-harder.html?_r=1