Author: Joshua Freedman

I took the city bus to and from school starting in kindergarten or first grade.  I remember riding my bike across the city to school one day (remember it because I found a $10 bill!)  I was probably left a bit too much to my own devices, could be described as a “latchkey kid,” or maybe just “normal life for a kid with a working single mom.”  Not a lot of supervision… but I also started my first business when I was 12 and had my own checking account, and was paying my own taxes by 16, and from then have had an (overly?) strong sense of responsibility and self-efficacy.  I learned it early: I am responsible for my life.

But I am not treating my kids this way.  When she was 8 or 9, Emma went into a shop by herself (mom in the car outside) and it was a big deal to let her be so independent.  We live in different times!  Or do we?  I’ve wondered for years if there really is more danger to kids today, or we’re just hyper afraid?

So I enjoyed a “Here and Now” show today interviewing Lenore Skenazy (listen to the story).  Skenzay wrote an article about letting her nine-year-old son ride the train home and unleashed a torrent of criticism that she’s “the world’s worst mom.”  Recently she wrote Free Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had, Without Going Nuts With Worry — showing some important data — she writes a blog on the topic.

The book presents extensive statistical evidence that there is LESS child predation today than 20 or 30 years ago, and, in fact it is FAR more likely that your child will be killed in your own car driving to school than be abducted.  Yet the thought of letting my 10-year-old take a bus downtown to get ice cream fills me with angst… and we put the kids in the car every day.

Just in case it’s not obvious:  People are NOT rational!

In the face of this irrational but completely real and horrible fear, the facts become nearly irrelevant — and then we start making decisions carelessly.  Applying emotional intelligence, we need to understand the source of the fear, recognize the pattern of reaction, and then evalute the consequences.  In the face of this horrifying fear of child predation, I stop the evaluation.  The trick isn’t to ignore the feeling, but rather to go further.  I’m clear how I feel about the immediate risks, but how do I feel about the long term?  How do I feel if I shelter them so much they lack self-efficacy?   If I teach them to be afraid of the world?

To be clear, I believe in sheltering kids.  There is much in the “real world” that I abhor, and I see little value in exposing them to it “so they’ll be able to cope.”  The kids at 8 and 10 don’t watch commercial TV, we preview movies that aren’t rated G, and we have chosen to leave the city and live in a pastoral community surrounded by oak-covered hills and farms.  Nor I do I believe in passing on a legacy of fear and helplessness.  So somehow we need to find a balance of risk and safety — and perhaps Skenazy’s factual data can help us do so.

Recent conversation w a client – major deja vu.  How often have I had this same discussion:  what they say they do isn’t what’s happening day to day.  A beautiful, compelling mission is worthless unless it lives in the the daily interactions of the organization.

It’s incredibly difficult to craft that powerful mission statement, that brief phrase that evokes the substantive and significant meaning of the organization.  After years of fiddling around and finally getting the words “just right,” it’s probably pretty annoying to hear that isn’t that important.  Don’t get me wrong, the “right” mission statement is incredibly important — it’s just unimportant in comparison with the real challenge:  putting the mission in action.

To make a mission live requires “drilling down,” carefully focusing to align intention and action. Think about the basic activities that take place in your organization each day:  What does it look, feel, and sound like to do those in accord with your mission?

For example, Six Seconds’ mission is: “Supporting people to make a positive difference, everywhere, all the time.”  So how should we answer the phone?  How should we respond to our colleagues when we disagree?  To live that mission, how should we be defining our organizational roles, setting budgets, or even choosing what paper to buy?  How about the culture we need to create — and the feelings that are essential to drive that?

Nan Summers, a friend and member of our network, once told me that when she was at Disney they had a phrase, “Everything Speaks,” meaning each little “tidbit” of the environment and the people there transmits some message… either the one intended or something else.  When you drill down, you recognize what & who is speaking, and adjust that to line up with the deeper shared purpose.  This requires giving up some level of autonomy — but not so much that you lose authenticity… big challenge!  Emotional intelligence is invaluable here because you need to see beyond the tactical.

“Everything speaks” emotionally even more than logically — millions of subtle messages come to prevade an organization and shape a culture and climate that’s infectious.  New people come in and adapt — and every interaction, every look, every nuance, ultimately transmits to the customer’s or client’s feelings of trust & loyalty.

Yet most organizations — businesses, government agencies, schools — that I encounter can barely articulate their purpose, and have little bandwidth to spare to consider how that purpose is being undermined or supported.  Just imagine how, if leaders made it an absolutely priority to ensure that the mission was alive at every level, these enterprises would rocket forward.  Have you ever been part of such a place?

Recent conversation w a client – major deja vu.  How often have I had this same discussion:  what they say they do isn’t what’s happening day to day.  A beautiful, compelling mission is worthless unless it lives in the the daily interactions of the organization.

It’s incredibly difficult to craft that powerful mission statement, that brief phrase that evokes the substantive and significant meaning of the organization.  After years of fiddling around and finally getting the words “just right,” it’s probably pretty annoying to hear that isn’t that important.  Don’t get me wrong, the “right” mission statement is incredibly important — it’s just unimportant in comparison with the real challenge:  putting the mission in action.

To make a mission live requires “drilling down,” carefully focusing to align intention and action. Think about the basic activities that take place in your organization each day:  What does it look, feel, and sound like to do those in accord with your mission?

For example, Six Seconds’ mission is: “Supporting people to make a positive difference, everywhere, all the time.”  So how should we answer the phone?  How should we respond to our colleagues when we disagree?  To live that mission, how should we be defining our organizational roles, setting budgets, or even choosing what paper to buy?  How about the culture we need to create — and the feelings that are essential to drive that?

Nan Summers, a friend and member of our network, once told me that when she was at Disney they had a phrase, “Everything Speaks,” meaning each little “tidbit” of the environment and the people there transmits some message… either the one intended or something else.  When you drill down, you recognize what & who is speaking, and adjust that to line up with the deeper shared purpose.  This requires giving up some level of autonomy — but not so much that you lose authenticity… big challenge!  Emotional intelligence is invaluable here because you need to see beyond the tactical.

“Everything speaks” emotionally even more than logically — millions of subtle messages come to prevade an organization and shape a culture and climate that’s infectious.  New people come in and adapt — and every interaction, every look, every nuance, ultimately transmits to the customer’s or client’s feelings of trust & loyalty.

Yet most organizations — businesses, government agencies, schools — that I encounter can barely articulate their purpose, and have little bandwidth to spare to consider how that purpose is being undermined or supported.  Just imagine how, if leaders made it an absolutely priority to ensure that the mission was alive at every level, these enterprises would rocket forward.  Have you ever been part of such a place?

Great post about the emotional component of sales –

Imagine if it were true, for example, that almost nobody buys a product or service anymore simply because they need it, or because its price is the right price? That, even in an economic downturn, they have to want it as much as need it before they buy? It’s a difficult concept to grasp because, at the end of the day, it’s not about rational thought.

Talks about How Customers Think (Gerald Zaltman, Harvard) says only 5% of consumer purchasing behavior is based on rational thought processes.  So for great sales, marketing, and customer service, more emotional intelligence needed!

Especially in these tough times, people want simplicity and authenticity.

The Myth of the Rational Buyer: How Too Much Thinking Can Hurt Your Brand | Design Finds You | Fast Company.

Google is crunching employee data to understand who might leave and why — so far, a key finding is that employees who feel underused are at risk.  This is a BFO (blinding flash of the the obvious) — a little emotional intelligence among managers would go a long way here!

Google Searches for Staffing Answers – WSJ.com.

How do we change out of a destructive pattern?

Emma (my daughter, now 9) frequently makes a big fuss when it’s time to do work that’s not appealing, especially “dumb writing homework” (despite usually liking writing and being an outstanding student).  This has gone on for years, but a couple of weeks ago I noticed myself becoming very reactive.  I was getting more and more irritated with her — and the irritation about homework seemed to be bleeding into our relationship-in-general.

I’d say hello in the morning and she’d grouch at me… say hello in the afternoon and she’d ignore me.  Then the homework fuss would come up, and I found myself thinking in such a judgmental way, labeling her as “drama queen,” “irrational,” and a few I won’t put in print.  As my frustration grew, I found myself thinking things like, “she can bloody well sit in her room ’till the work is done” (and thinking it with a kind of violent savagery ala “that will show her!”).

There are two aspects of this reaction that I’d like to explore with you:

First, when I felt disrespected and excluded, my patience for the “homework drama” plummeted.  My hurt feelings translated to wanting to hurt back.

Second, as I was feeling impatient, I fell into a pattern of force (power and control) and dealing with superficial “facts” — despite my certain knowledge that this DOES NOT WORK.

In Six Seconds’ work on change, we teach that people behave the way they do for emotionally valid reasons, and that unless you change the underlying emotional dynamic, you don’t create change.  This concept is explained well in Alan Deutschman’s book, Change or Die, which I constantly talk about (here’s an interview I did with him about this).  Deutschman says the dominant, but failing, paradigm when trying to drive change is to use facts, force and fear.

As I get more and more frustrated, I begin to rely on power and control.  I start using facts to back up how right I am, and force to reinforce my sense of power, and fear to accentuate my own power over her.  In that FFF paradigm, we try to make people change.  This doesn’t work, because people don’t want to be forced.  When people feel pushed, they resist.  The resistance causes them to protect, and they become less open to risk.  Meanwhile as we push, we become more irritated and less open to understand what they’re feeling and what’s really blocking the change.

Nice mess — and I KNOW this, but knowledge is not enough.  So here I am, getting frustrated with my daughter, and the more frustrated I get, the more I find myself shooting down this track, a track that I intellectually know leads only to more frustration.  But nonetheless, I’m sucked in.  It’s like I’m in a terrible daytime TV show where these messages are beamed into my brain.  And the more irritated I get, the more I’m in this reactive, superficial, destructive mindset.

Once I started to reflect I could see this pattern — this track I was on.  Which was great to recognize, but then what?  Getting off requires a shift in thinking+feelings — a way to step out of the dynamic.

Fortunately, it came a day later at bedtime.

I was just kissing my daughter goodnight and she had a rare evening of not having a book in hand… so welcomed a sleepy snuggle.  She’s so big now, and so fierce in her opinions.  But laying next to her I had this vivid memory of 9 years ago when we were on our first long plane ride and told her about it.

So long as one of us was walking around holding her, Emma was content.  But as soon as we sat down she fussed.  I remember walking up and down the long 747 aisles in the dark, with glimpses of night as we walked past the rows of windows, pacing endlessly at 500 miles per hour with this sleepy warm angel.

I remember quietly singing the same little song over and over and over (”la mar estaba serena, serena estaba la mar…”).  Probably as much for me as her; I can still feel the soothing rhythm of it.

I remember looking out the small galley window, watching the endless stretches of Nordic ice in the moonlight, and wondering at the infinite variety of that unknown alien landscape, so cold and distant.

At the time, I had no sense that this would become a precious memory… but now it’s so vivid… and tinged with the sepia tones of nostalgia.  Amazing what become printed in our hearts.

And from that place of appreciation, the whole “homework drama frustration” simply evaporated.  I remembered the precious (and willful) innocence inside this person.  I “made her good” in my mind and heart and this let me step off the reactive track.  This emotional connection is empathy, and it’s a doorway to a whole new way of seeing — and the antidote to the FFF paradigm.

In the week since that evening, we’ve had no conversation about changing the “homework drama,” but it just hasn’t come up.  It’s like the circuit is (at least for the moment) diffused.  While it’s likely to resurface, I’m now more keenly aware of the trap — and at least one way out.

I have always loved little boxes, they’re all around our house and I have a collection near my desk.

I’ve decided to make one a Dream Box in an attempt to stay hopeful.

I’d like to say I’m not afraid to talk about this, but the truth is I am.  I’m afraid that you will judge me because while I’m “supposed” to be tough, to be a “real man” and have that “executive presence,” in fact I’m uncertain and lonely.  I often doubt myself and question the value of my work.  I suspect this is true for a lot of people — I suspect it’s especially true for people who are attempting to lead and venture into new lands.

When work is relatively easy, the voice of doubt is quiet — or at least shouted down by all the excitement.  But in times like these when economic pressures mount and work and life become more challenging, the doubts get louder and more pervasive.  Apparently it’s not just an economic depression.  I go from doubting my direction, into doubting my vision, and then the doubt spreads to my very identity and I feel depressed.

Sadly, I know just what to say to myself to cut myself down, and on “bad days” I overwhelm myself –  I tell myself I’m not making a difference, that I’m wasting the best years of my life, that I’m sacrificing for nothing.  I tell myself it would be so much easier to just work for someone else and let them worry, to go to some well worn conventional path rather than tilting at endless windmills – and that while it’s sad that I’d make more money doing meaningless work, the evidence is that’s more valuable.  In our society the messages are pervasive money equates to value and success… and with so much economic uncertainty and fear abounding, that message becomes more potent.

Another part of me tries to stand up and challenge the doubter, but it’s all too easy to find evidence that the doubts are right.  Especially when the phone isn’t ringing.

Yet somehow that other optimistic voice just won’t give up — and there are a lot of “good days” — and that’s why I want the dream box.

A few months ago someone emailed thanking me for an article and said, “never doubt that you are making a difference.”  As I’ve thought about this post, those words keep running through my head.  I don’t want to doubt — yet I do.  So I’m going to go find that email and put those words in the dream box.  Just yesterday someone name Kaye emailed about the EQ Certification training and wrote, “it is still the single most powerful professional development that I have done” — Kaye’s words are going in the Dream Box.  Often after workshops people give me notes — they’re going in too.

Because even in the worst of these moments when almost all of me wants to give up, I try to imagine what I’d do instead, and I keep coming back to the foundation of our vision at Six Seconds.  Yes, maybe it’s irrational and maybe even hopeless, but somehow we – humans – have to find a way out off the self-destructive treadmill we’ve created.  We need to find value in ourselves and each other more than in money and things.  We need new visions and new skills to learn to love more deeply, to genuinely care for ourselves, each others, and our world — and no, my contribution won’t make this change, but what if I could make just a small inroad?  And if not me, then who?  And then I see messages like Kaye’s and I think maybe we are — not fixing it, but leaning the right direction.  Though the road is long and the path is steep, just a few steps might make a vast difference in a few people’s lives.

So I’ll take the reminders and put them in my dream box.  Then when the doubts start shouting, that other voice will have some backup.

In the car yesterday when Patty, my wife, accidentally pressed the little red button on her keys.  Lots of loud noise ensued, with Patty jumping out of her skin and jabbing at every button she could find to turn off the caterwauling.

When she finally managed to silence the alarm: “Good name for this button,” she said, “I press it and it makes me panic!”

Patty’s cortical thinking (analysis, sequencing) was shut down due to the flood of emotions pushing her to protect herself in this “dangerous” situation.  This reaction, which Goleman called “Hijacking the Amygdala” after Joesph LeDoux’s scientific research on the process, is often described as a “primitive” or even “bad” emotional response.  Yet it beautifully illustrates the primacy of emotion and the way feelings drive us.  The trick, as Patty found, is to learn — in advance — how to push the “un panic” button.

Out of curiosity I started a poll on LinkedIn, the business networking platform.

What do you most want for your kids?
* Their financial success
* Their happiness
* That they contribute
* That they are kind

Click here to take the poll before you look below….

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(that space was the “pause” while you went to take the poll… and if you did you saw more current results, but here you go)

Of course as a parent I want ALL of these and more – but in the poll you only get one!  I offered 4 responses, two which are more “selfish” and two which are more “altruistic” — you can see the results.

Of course this is a SMALL and nonscientific poll, but what is the implication for our future?

This is an absolutely lovely video showing a fabulous surprise – an “ordinary” extraordinary woman turning cynicism to appreciation. Reminds me how powerful we can be: