Joe Gerstandt | keynote speaker, freedom fighter, freak-flag flier

Catching up after a deeeelightful week at the lake with family…I will share some pictures soon. In the meantime, I wanted to share a bit of blog reading that I enjoyed and thought you might find valuable as well. Happy reading!

Blocks That Prevent Us From Being Who We Mean Ourselves To Be

David Pollard is one of my absolute favorite bloggers, and not only is this another valuable and insightful post from him, it is partially about another favorite person of mine, Patti Digh. Read this post (and just read this blog on a regular basis), and reflect on what David has to say, but also consider participating in the audioconferences that Patti is conducitng with her associate, David Robinson.

The important message from Patti and David, I think, is that we should stop trying to “self-improve” to be better or other than all we are, and focus on doing instead of being, and that key to that is to understand what is blocking us from acting.

Changing Your Corporate Culture

A great post at BusinessWeek.com by Peter Bergman about fixing dysfunctional corporate culture. A few points that really resonated with me from this article were a) culture is important, b) culture change is hard, and c) the stories that you tell can be valuable tools for driving culture change.

To start a culture change all we need to do is two simple things:

• Do dramatic story-worthy things that represent the culture we want to create. Then let other people tell stories about it.
• Find other people who do story-worthy things that represent the culture we want to create. Then tell stories about them.

For example, if you want to create a faster moving, less perfectionist culture, instead of berating someone for sending an email without proper capitalization, send out a memo with typos in it.

Or if you want managers and employees to communicate more effectively, stop checking your computer in the middle of a conversation every time the new message sound beeps. Instead, put your computer to sleep when they walk in your office.

Or if you’re trying to create a more employee-focused culture, instead of making the bride work on her wedding day, give her the week off.

We live by stories. We tell them, repeat them, listen to them carefully, and act in accordance with them.

We can change our stories and be changed by them.

Authenticity a Buzzword? Try Truth.

Another really great and timely post from Jamie Notter. Authenticity has certainly become a buzzword. We are all likely beginning to be sick of hearing about it. That does not mean that there is not a huge and powerful opportunity connected to the meaning behind the word. Do not let your irritation with a buzzword get in the way of changing the way we do business, and organization and collaboration and communication.

I heard someone say recently that they were already sick of the word authenticity. It’s obviously being discussed a LOT in social media spheres. I’ve talked about it here as well. I think it’s a great word, but when any word gets too much play, it can start to lose its meaning.

So here’s an alternative: truth. I can hardly think of an organization that could not benefit from more truth. Not that all organizations are baskets of lies–truth is more complex than that. But in most organizations, people hold back, leaders don’t reveal, learning takes a back seat, and important conversations remain unspoken for years. The more I think about it, the more surprised I am that we’re not doing more about this. I think there are some simple steps we can take to bring more truth into our organizations, and I’m not sure what we’re waiting for.

Tame Your Amygdala

Dr. Ellen Weber’s blog is always a source of valuable information, as she does a wonderful job of taking brain science and applying it to business, leadership, organizational behavior and our interactions with each other. In this post she talks about the emotional lightening strikes that can be generated by our amygdala and how to reduce the potential negative outcomes.

Your amygdala can be tweaked to transform panic reactions into calm in the face of fear, anxiety, stress, or frustration encounters. How does it happen?

Simply act deliberately in the opposite direction of any volatile, negative, or moody feelings. If feeling fearful or if you are embarrassed, for instance, try disagreeing more with the brain in mind. In this way, the very act of using a skill to disagree well, begins to rewire your brain for healthier responses in similar situations.

Simply put, you can learn to bypass your amygdala’s automatic default operations, in much the same way you choose to tap different buttons on a computer, to enter a different screen.

How to Foolproof Your Mind, Part I

I was introduced to this blog, by Dr. Daivd Ballard, and I really like this post which illuminates for us, some of the ways in which our thinking can lead us wrong. This post examines 10 common traps that our mind falls into and also gives some practical steps for avoiding these traps.

“Is the population of Turkey greater than 35 million? What’s your best estimate?” Researchers asked this question to a group of people, and the estimates were seldom too far off 35 million. The same question was posed to a second group, but this time using 100 million as the starting point. Although both figures were arbitrary, the estimates from the ‘100 million’ group were, without fail, concomitantly higher than those in the ‘35 million’ group. (for the curious, here’s the answer.)

Lesson: Your starting point can heavily bias your thinking: initial impressions, ideas, estimates or data “anchor” subsequent thoughts.

This trap is particularly dangerous as it’s deliberately used in many occasions, such as by experienced salesmen, who will show you a higher-priced item first, “anchoring” that price in your mind, for example.

Enjoy, and have a good weekend.