Don’t Settle for Mediocrity, Strive for Mental Toughness

Yesterday, I was listening to Experience Pros Radio http://www.experiencepros.com/ on AM 560. Eric and Angel were talking about the book, 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class by Steve Siebold http://www.mentaltoughnesssecrets.com/ . Who doesn’t want more mental toughness especially as we are still sloshing our way through a less than forgiving economy? We could all use more toughness as we think about goals we want to achieve in 2010.

Mental toughness? What does it really mean? How can we train ourselves to have it so that we can find that next fulfilling job? If you’re an employer, how can you find employees that are mentally tough or how can you retain current staff that already have this quality? If you are the boss, maybe you need to work on your own mental toughness.

Siebold says that folks with mental toughness possess the following qualities:

-Champions Lead Through Facilitated Introspection
-The World Class Compartmentalize Their Emotions
-The World Class Are Ferociously Cooperative
-The Great Ones Possess Supreme Self Confidence
-The World Class Embrace Metacognition (understanding how you think)
-The World Class Are Coachable
-Champions Know Why They Are Fighting
-The World Class Operate From Love and Abundance
-School Is Never Out For The Great Ones
-Champions Are Interdependent
-The Great Ones Are Bold
-Champions Are Zealots For Change
-The Great Ones Don’t Give Back…They Just Give
-Champions Are Masters Of Mental Organization
-The Great Ones Only Negotiate Win-Win Deals
-Champions Seek Balance
-Champions Believe In Honesty
-The Great Ones Aren’t Afraid To Suffer

From the point of view of your own mental toughness, which of these qualities do you have and where are you lacking? Think about the skills you already have and how you can leverage them to get a job, obtain a promotion or be a better boss. What deficiencies do you need to honestly address in yourself that is hindering your success? The key here is to be honest with yourself.

As an HR professional coaching supervisors and looking for great talent, this list is screaming the qualities of people driven to succeed that I want in my company. In order to engage top talent in your organization, you need managers with mental toughness. Champions want to be led by example, not just lip services from the top. Your recruiting process needs to be designed to pinpoint coachable, confident, honest team players that aren’t afraid to put the company, clients and other employees first. Your training programs need to teach managers how to encourage mental toughness in others.

Push yourself and your organization to the next level in 2010!

Communication Conundrums and Message Mishaps

If I had only one wish, it would be to have the ability to communicate in such a way that my intended meaning was understood completely every time. Just imagine what that would mean in your relationships with family, colleagues, clients or a hiring manager! We would all have dream jobs, love our co-workers, have virtually no family drama and maybe even our own talk show. Unfortunately, clear communication every time is an impossibility because we all have a jumble of complicated, messy, conscious and subconscious thoughts going through our heads based on our unique set of past experiences.

I have recently been enlightened by authors Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Shelia Heen of the Harvard Negotiation Project after reading their book entitled Difficult Conversations. The authors explain that in every difficult conversation we have there are actually three conversations going on. Some examples of difficult conversations in the workplace would be asking for a raise, giving negative feedback to your employee, terminating an employee, resigning or raising a workplace complaint.

First there’s the “what happened?” conversation. Who said and did what? We spend most of our time focusing on blame and trying to determine who is right and who is wrong. Most of the time, the conversation is about perceptions, interpretations and values rather than right or wrong. The authors talk about untangling intention versus impact. We need to move from blaming to a “learning stance” by exploring each other’s stories. The book goes into excellent detail on how to listen and what to do when you can’t.

Then there’s the “feelings” conversation. Yes, that dreaded touchy feely part many of us shy away from. Are your feelings valid? How does the other person feel about the situation? Most of the time, we avoid talking about them, but they leak out in what we say anyway. Often times, we are not even aware of all the feelings we have about the situation. How we feel is usually at the heart of difficult conversations. When we don’t express them, it is more difficult to listen. The book explains how to use the urge to blame as a clue to uncover our feelings and then how to express them without judgment.

The “identity” conversation then comes into play. This is a conversation we have with ourselves about what the situation means to us. We have an internal debate about whether we are good or bad, competent or incompetent, loveable or unlovable. The authors help the reader understand that the identity conversation is not all or nothing, it’s “and”. Good people can do a bad thing and a competent person can make a mistake. When our identity is shaken, it can knock us off balance, but the authors explain how to stay grounded.

Another complicated twist is that we need to remember that the other person is having their own version of each of these three conversations right along with us. With all this going on, it’s pretty amazing when we do get our point across. Pick this one up if you want to understand and improve how you communicate. http://www.amazon.com/Difficult-Conversations-Discuss-what-Matters/dp/014028852X