The KindExcellence Blog

I recently booked a flight through a traveling agency. Booking the flight was easy, it’s what came after it that I didn’t expect. The agent spent another 5 minutes on the phone with me telling me about additional services and locations, about their great staff and more. The interesting part for me was how she ended every sentence with a “questement” (a combination of a question and a statement) such as “you’ll certainly order by using our services next time! Am I right?”

1. I’m curious to learn if you’ve run into a variation of such statements in your work with managers (dictating in disguise) and if so how the different variation manifested itself?
2. Despite the fact that I’m highly direct and straight forward a person I said “sure” to pretty much all of these “questements.” What is it about this type of disguise that makes it more difficult on the person being “engaged” (i.e. me in this case) to share my truth with the “engager” (i.e. the agent in this case)?

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When I was in my teens I remember arguing that the only way I can know if a decision is right for me is by “feeling it”. I still to this day “sleep” on important decisions to make sure I hear the voice of my emotions.

As it turns out researches (at the UCSD interdisciplinary brain research center and others) describe emotions as the mechanism that “organizes” the mind’s communication, merging content with logic, with autobiographical memory and more.

1. How common is using emotions as maps to understanding the complexity of reality and how we relate to it in your work environment?
2. Do you use it personally and if so how?
3. What can we do to allow more people to use the power of being in tune with emotions in the workplace in your opinion?

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With any questions about the power of addressing behavioral change through the type of memory that incorporates the change in the long term: info@KindExcellence.com

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Songs often capture the spirit of a generation. In his song Gavin DeGraw captures the concept of being genuine:

“…I’m surrounded by liars everywhere I turn
I’m surrounded by imposters everywhere I turn
I’m surrounded by identity crisis everywhere I turn
Am I the only one who noticed?
I can’t be the only one who’s learned
I don’t want to be
Anything other than what I’ve been trying to be lately
All I have to do
Is think of me and I have peace of mind
I’m tired of looking ’round rooms
Wondering what I’ve got to do
Or who I’m supposed to be
I don’t want to be anything other than me…”

1. Do you think the song is a good representation of the new generation entering the business world?

2. What do you think SHOULD change in order to maximize the intellectual and emotional potential of this generation in business?

3. Same as 2 except I’m wondering what you expect will actually change as a result of the entry of this generation into the workplace?

Thanks for your insights,

Reut

Learn more about the three pillars that make KindExcellence the best organizational platform: the KE organizational culture, the 8 emotional and thinking habits of effective management and the subconscious training process. I’m always happy to share how KE applies to the areas of employee engagement, retention and performances: reut@KindExcellence.com

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A couple of months ago I asked a question about our thinking and emotional habits and the effect those have on our ability to innovate or change. Today Susan Blake, a member of our KindExcellence group, gave me a gift: she reminded me that courage is such a habit—one that will determine if we take action to innovate and change or if we allow things to go unchanged, unchallenged.

1. If courage is a habit (I agree with Susan that it is but feel free to rebut) how can we effectively reinforce it in our everyday?
2. Which other such emotional and thinking habits, such as courage do we need to practice in order for us to be effective innovators or change facilitators (this applies to managers, employees and consultants alike)?

Thanks.

Reut

Learn more about the three pillars that make KindExcellence the best organizational platform: the KE organizational culture, the 8 emotional and thinking habits of effective management and the subconscious training process. I’m always happy to share the applications of KindExcellence: reut@KindExcellence.com

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Some of our most important skills in life are made of our own conditioning. When we think about “big” skill structures like giving and receiving feedback it is often small everyday mechanisms like being able to accept our own limitations and mistakes with self esteem that can help us acquire the “big” skills.

1. What other small daily habits can we adopt to improve our ability to give and receive feedback?
2. It seems that improvement is often associated with what’s missing—do you use any creative ways to be completely positive about improvement?

Thank you Charles Jones for this coupling of self esteem with making mistakes—I obviously love it.

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Some will say that repeated action leads to intent, heck most big religions are based on that notion. I have found the opposite to be equally true.

Bringing up Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of contemplation, fasting and “remorse” alongside Valentine’s day may seem a bit strange at first but bare with me here…

I remember my first Yom Kippur fast. I was 12 and I thought it would be interesting to explore…after about 10 hours of fasting I felt that the physical restraints that may free some to contemplate can also be interpreted as “hey I paid my dues—I fasted and now I am to be forgiven.” It’s not the intent of the fast but we do this—we do the act and we sign it off as done even if the intent wasn’t there.

Today I saw roses everywhere and it brought that “action instead of intent” back to mind. It seems to me having clear rules about giving and showing affection is a great thing, but at some point the action of “following the action code” allows us to skip the intent.

Intent is everything.

1. How do you see intent or lack thereof contributing in business and in creating employee engagement in particular?
2. What do you do to convey intent in ways that will come across as meaningful rather than “I’m doing it ‘cause I know I should”?

Here is to celebrating each day as if it was both Valentine’s Day and Yom Kippur! 

Many thanks,

Reut

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Despite the scientific persona interviewing has taken on in recent years one fundamental aspect of interviewing remains uncharted—how we draw conclusions.

How do you really decide if someone is responsible, creative, emotionally receptive or an effective communicator?

We know how it happens—we ask a question and listen to the answer on multiple levels, we create patters, compare contradictions and compare what we hear with hundreds if not thousands of other interviews—in other words we allow our subconscious mind to draw conclusions for us.

1. Which steps in the process of reaching conclusions about candidates can lead to faulty conclusions (inaccurate feedback loop, basing conclusions on one’s own limitations etc.)?
2. If you could better understand the subconscious process that leads to the “right” conclusions could that speed your ability to teach others, novices at interviewing?

Many thanks,

Reut

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One of the most fascinating aspects of managing people is gaining their trust.

During my HR director days I believed every interaction between manager and employee begins with setting up the employee’s meter of vulnerability.

Questions like: “Am I meeting your expectations?”, “How much of myself should I share?”, “How vulnerable should I allow myself to be to keep things working in my benefit?” seem to be common questions people ask themselves when they start working.

1. Does the degree of vulnerability set up in these early stages play a role in facilitating trust in your opinion?
2. What are you doing as a manager to allow effective vulnerability?
3. How do you negotiate the “permissiveness” that comes with building a “mistake safe environment” and the expectations and boundaries that are associated with the need for results?

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When we are young older people tell us: “you are still a child, you can change. I on the other hand am too old to change now.”

We are creatures of habits. Repeat the same sequence of thought or action every time you get into an argument and you’ll soon find it’s hard to stop. We seem to think that the accumulative effect of repeating the same habit more times makes it more engraved in our minds and hence harder to change.

Yet I know executives who are flexible thinkers changing and adapting to different intellectual and emotional situations. I also know children who are adamant about not changing.

1. Clearly some abilities are harder to gain as our brain grows older but are we not generalizing too much?

2. Do you know people who are better “changers” than others—if so what is it about them that is different?

3. Do you suppose the ability to change is something we can change?

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Sometimes it takes going through a full circle to find that we had a very good answer to begin with.

In recent years recruiting experts developed some amazing tools to identify the right candidates for businesses—matching capabilities and aptitudes to the tasks of the position at hand and the organizational culture of the recruiting business.

There are, however certain things no test can reveal.

The willingness to give of oneself is one such key component.

Recruiting experts can pick up on such nuisances though. They can because they use a subconscious programming that has seen hundreds if not thousands of candidates linking details only the subconscious mind is capable of grouping together alongside an effective feedback loop.

It may seem out of reach, but it is as scientific as testing and screening at this point.

1. Is it fair to say that the willingness to give of oneself is one of the most important components of any hire?
2. Are there other elements that are critical in hiring people that can only be detected through subconscious thinking?
3. Do you know how to train your team of recruiters or do you evaluate the ability of your outsourced recruiters to effectively use subconscious thinking in interviews or do you only care to know which metrics and testing tools they can use?

Thanks,

Reut

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