Chang Chats with Stu Chang

Think of your comfort zone as things that you can do effectively without much thought or fear. 

The benefit of having a larger comfort zone could simply be stated as a more effective or fulfilling life.  

For a lot of people, the zone directly outside of their comfort zone is their anxiety zone.  

Visualize in your mind two circles, one inside the other.  Let's label the inside circle your comfort zone and the outside circle your anxiety zone.

The key to moving outside of your comfort zone is realizing that there is actually a third circle.  We'll call that circle your learning zone.  

So how do we create this learning zone and then turn it into a comfort zone?

It takes courage to step out of your comfort zone, but it's good to think about courage not as a lack of fear, but as the ability to move forward despite your fear.  Most people can't make fear go away, nor should they.  Fear is an emption we need to survive.  So how do we have courage and move forward despite our fear.

Stepping out of your comfort zone requires you to take risk, but that risk can be minimized if you follow a method of making success more likely while avoiding rash, unproductive, or irrational behavior.  

One such process involves setting goals; determining the importance of achieving the goal; weighing risks against benefits; selecting the proper time for action; developing a plan; and developing contingency plans.

Setting Goals

What does success look like in this high-risk situation? Is it obtainable?  Your goals should be reasonably within reach, not pie-in-the-sky ambitions.  Having your goal is key, because it is the reward at the end of the journey.  As you go through this journey of getting out of your comfort zone, focusing on your goal is what will get you through it if you start to waiver.

Is your goal Import

Just how important is it that you achieve your goal or goals? If you don’t do something about the current state of affairs, will you suffer?  Will you be able to look at yourself in the mirror?  Courage is not about squandering effort on low-priority issues.  Focusing on fewer but more important things.  Pick your battles so to speak, but make sure you don't forego something you will regret later.

Weighing Risks and Benefits

This component focuses on trade-offs. What do you stands to win? What do you stands to lose? What are the chances that your reputation will be tarnished beyond repair if you go forward? Will you lose respect of your friends or peers?  Will you miss out on opportunities?

Selecting the Right Time

Although emotion is always in the mix, and may even be an asset when making a courageous move, consider the timing of making the move now or waiting.  For your situation consider the art of losing the battle in order to win the war.

Developing a plan

If you have determined the timing is right, the next step is to come up with a plan on how you can move forward. 

Developing Contingency Plans

Faced with having to take a risk, most people make only one attempt.  The better developed your contingency plans are, the likelier it is you’ll achieve your goals. 

Moving out of your comfort zone and into your learning zone often requires being what you haven’t been, thinking as you haven’t thought, and acting as you haven’t acted. 

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In this chat, I share with you 5 magic questions that will help you to lift-up your thinking, simplify the complex, and help you and your teams to think more critically and strategically. Before we jump into the 5 magic questions, I'd ask you first to think about, why does your company pay you.   The highest level answer is, so that you can help them to "protect and grow" the business. If that is indeed the case, how do you nest help your company to protect and grow the business.  Well if everything is working perfectly, then there's not much to do.  But chances are, if you are paid to help protect and grow the business, there are lots of things threatening the business or hampering growth. When you think about these things, these become the problems to solve.  If these problems are big enough and relevant enough, if you solve them, you will in turn have helped to protect and grow the business. That said, what are then, 5 magic questions that can help you to lift-up your thinking, simplify the complex, and help you and your teams to think more critically and strategically. 1.  What is preventing you from protecting and growing the business - what is the problem to solve?  When answering that question, always define it by answering, What is the context (reality), who is involved, and what is the pain point. 2.  What is the objective - your big idea to solve the problem, and... how do you know when you've achieved the objective (goal). 3.  What is the plan to achieve the objective and by when, and, how do you know these are the right things to work on to achieve the objective. 4.  Are you on track to do what you promised in your plan? 5.  If not, what are you doing to get back on track and by when? When pitching your big ideas to key stakeholders talk about the: Why - Problem What - Objective and goal - your big idea How - The plan, are you on track, what you are doing to recover Asking yourself and your team these 5 magic questions will help you to lift-up your thinking, simplify the complex, and help you and your teams to think more critically and strategically. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/stu-chang/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stu-chang/support

According to the NeuroLeadership Institute, there are four conditions that can help facilitate more insights

Having a quiet mind; being internally focused; thinking slightly positive; not thinking about the problem directly

Some of the things you can do to create these conditions:

Having a quiet mind - Do less of:  Asking multiple questions at a time; Zero in on details.  Do more of:  Asking one question at a time; Lift up the level of vision and planning.

Being internally focused - Do less of:  Telling others your ideas; Pressuring for results.  Do more of:  Asking for the ideas of others first; Allow space for reflection.

Thinking slightly positive - Do less of:  Asking Why questions; Criticizing or dismissing.  Do more of:  Asking how questions;  Being non-judgmental and more encouraging.

Not thinking about the problem directly - Do less of:  Focusing hard on the problem;  Asking about what has been done so far.  Do more of:  Focusing lightly on possible solutions; Considering options for moving forward.

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Sometimes your personal or work like can get tough and feel overwhelming.

There are days you just don't feel like you are being effective or maybe your self-esteem takes a hit.  

There are times you just feel very stressed.

In this chat, I want to talk a model called the "Flow" model.  This model may help you find out what you can do to become more resilient.

Think of a diagram and on the vertical axis that represents the various "challenges" you face every day.  At the bottom of that axis, the challenges are "low" and on the top of that axis, the challenges are very "high".  It is worth noting that the difficulty of those challenges are unique to you and your abilities.

Now on the horizontal axis, let's call that "abilities", and on the left side of that axis, we label that low and on the right side we label that high.  Ability is comprised on many factors, but the two that are worth discussing are time and skills.

When you look at the whole diagram together you can create 4 quadrants.

In the bottom left quadrant, the challenge is low and your ability is also low.  When most people experience this category, they experience apathy.  If you want to move out of this quadrant to feel more energized, increase the challenge.

In the bottom right where the challenge is low but your skill is high, you may experience boredom.  If you want to move out of this category you should also increase the challenge.

Now the top left is where many people sit.  This is where the challenge is high, but their ability to deal with the challenge is low.  You need to find out for yourself why your ability is low, but I'll offer two main areas to start.  1.  You simply may not have enough time.  Whether it is your personal life or your professional life, I would suggest determining what your priorities are and focus your time on your priorities.  2.  The second area is skill.  There can be a host of reasons why your skills are not up to par with the challenge.  If the challenge is right and you are under-skilled, then determine which skill you need to improve and put together a robust development plan.  If your skills are appropriate for your role but the challenge assigned is too high, speak with your manager on giving you an assignment that is a more appropriate fit for the role. 

The top right quadrant is where you want to be.  This is where the challenge is high (meaningful work that you are passionate about), and your ability to meet the challenge is also high.  

If you can reach this flow quadrant, you will be more effective, have higher self-esteem, and psychologically, just be more resilient to any setbacks that come your way.

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Activities are how you achieve your outcomes.  Outcomes are what you need to achieve to be successful.

We live in a meritocracy which the dictionary defines as a system, organization, or society in which people are chosen and moved into positions of success, power, and influence on the basis of their demonstrated abilities and merit (outcomes).

Merit is conduct deserving reward, honor, or esteem.

All our reward systems at work are based on delivering outcomes through merit.  Merit increases, bonus, promotions.

Take a well balanced approach to developing your skills to be able improve your abilities.

Job Knowledge; Complexity / scope; Autonomy

Most people focus on developing Job Knowledge in the Operating Skills area.  Certifications, etc.  So is everyone else, so competition to distinguish in this area is steep.  Hence, taking a more well balanced approach to skills development to improve your overall abilities.

Use thinking frameworks to deliver outcomes that matter.

Purpose - Serves a human being or group of human beings; offers unique value; is aligned with overall company strategy and goals; is measurable.

Objective - The "what" of Big idea.  It is what will enable you to create unique value and sustainably deliver that value to the customers in a distinct way.

Capabilities - The set and configuration of capabilities (supporting activities) required to meet your purpose as defined by your objective.

Management Systems - The systems; structures; skills that will help you to understand the efficacy of the choices and the progress towards the capabilities are measured.

By focusing on outcomes and not activities you will be able to:

• Facilitate focus and alignment on the big picture
• Empower people
• Unlock innovation
• Enable accountability
• Develop you and you team's way of thinking

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The dictionary defines “listen” as “giving one’s attention to a sound.” While this definition captures an essential part of the definition.  The goal of listening is understanding, thus, listening is a process.  As a process, listening then involves giving! Giving a lot more than mere attention with your ears.

Listening involves giving our heart, eyes, effort, empathy and so much more. The process of listening is so complex that no single definition can fully capture what really happens when one listens. As a result, from a single Traditional Chinese character, I will show that “genuine listening” involves more than auditory perception.

In traditional Chinese, the verb listen pronounced Ting literally means "to listen".  Ting is a character made up of several other distinct characters, each having a meaning that represents what we actually "give" when involved in the listening process.

Genuine listening involves giving the maximum of yourself to the process.  That is represented by the symbol "shi" (十 ) which means ten or maximum. When others know we respect them enough to give 100% of ourselves to listening and understanding them, they will be much more apt to open up and share.

Genuine listening means maintaining eye-contact (目) as represented by the character "mu" or "eyes".

When engaged in a conversation, words represent a fraction of the meaning that is conveyed. A lot more information is transmitted nonverbally. Researchers have found that the total impact of a message is about 7 percent verbal, 38 percent vocal and 55 percent nonverbal. Respectful eye-contact helps to bridge the boundary between the verbal and nonverbal. It brings a pure quality of receptivity as it opens the window to content and context of the message. So, when listening to someone, get rid of all visual distractions.

The next character "yi" means "one" or "single".  When taken in context with the character the next character "Xin" which means heart. "yi" means single undivided attention.  Coming back to the character "xin"... All humans have a need to be validated.  Listening to them with empathy allows them to feel as though they are being heard and understood.  This then feels good because it is connected to our deepest sense of self-worth. Oftentimes we listen with our attention focused on how we are going to respond or refute what the other person is saying. Genuine listening is different, it involves listening with curiosity, compassion, and with the true purpose of understanding.  Listening to someone with empathy demonstrates caring and acknowledging.  Listening with empathy gives the other person a chance to open up and to fully express themselves which is also represented by the character Xin meaning heart, as in them being able to express themselves from the heart.

As we move to the left, the next character means "ear" or hearing.  But remember ear is only part of Ting.  Listening involves more than the auditory act of hearing. We use our ears to listen by paying attention not just to the words spoken but also to the tone, pace and emphasis, to help understand The person’s relationship to the words.  Just using our hearing effectively as we listen already tells us a lot.

The last character "wang" represents king.  Formally it can also mean best.  We use our mind as we’re listening to understand.  We consider the words and ideas shared.  Many interpret "wang" in this context to mean best thinking or thinking like a king.

So if we take a look at the whole character, we could summarize the single Traditional Chinese word for listening which is Ting to translate loosely to, "Giving the maximum of yourself using your eyes, ears and heart, paying undivided attention and using our best thinking like a benevolent king."

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Great leaders build success by learning to think differently from the average person.  Successful people have sought to master a single skill: The ability to THINK CRITICALLY. 

Critical thinking is the process of careful and deep thinking about a subject or idea. It includes being able to analyze and weigh facts, to carefully reason, and to make insightful connections. 

Here are five tips: 

1. Learn To Accept Negative Feedback When someone criticizes your work, it doesn't feel good. You'll be tempted to defend yourself, or to close your mind.  Don't. Steps to accepting negative feedback Recognize its value Ask for it regularly Reward it. Thank people for it Never punish negative feedback Listen actively Don’t respond right away Don’t refute the criticism or justify yourself Don’t take offense. Don’t interpret it as a personal attack.

2. Block Time To Think The whirlwind and urgency of the day is a very strong pull on your time.  But don't confuse motion with progress.  Don't confuse urgent with important.  Critical thinking is hard work. So, when it comes time to analyze facts, block out time in your calendar to engage in deep thought, because it is important. Use some of the following questions to help you analyze: What is the problem preventing you from being successful? If you could solve the problem, what does success look like, how do you measure it? What are the facts and assumptions? What are some alternative solutions to achieve the goal? What are the pros and cons of each alternative? What is the best solution given the goal and your practical constraints? 

3. Create The Conditions For Insight Quiet moments: Quiet moments help reduce external perceptual competition (e.g., sights, sounds) for our conscious attention or awareness, allowing the brain to detect weaker signals more readily. Looking inward: Looking inward, or thinking about your thinking (also known as metacognition), shifts the focus of awareness away from older, more established solutions, and away from external input. It also can shift your focus to your thought process itself, as opposed to just the content of your thinking. Positive emotion: Research suggests people are more likely to solve more problems with insight when in a positive mood than in a negative mood. Distance from the problem: When you walk away from the problem and allow your attention to drift, this frees up the conscious mind from focusing on very strong and well-rehearsed signals. 

4. Zoom In and Zoom Out One pitfall that prevents critical thinking is focusing only on the detail and the short-term. Zooming Out is essential to big picture decision making. It helps you to put things in context and stress principles that are important, but perhaps you may miss some subtleties and nuances. Zooming In brings the details into sharp focus. Opportunities may look large and compelling, but may lack context.  One trap of Zooming In is that the constraints of the details become "the problem to solve" rather than trying to achieve the original outcome. The best leaders work the zoom button in both directions.  When faced with a crisis, they can address the immediate situation while seeking structural solutions. They can zoom in to see problems while zooming out to look for similar situations, root causes, and principles or policies that will help prevent the crisis from recurring. 

5. Take a Break From The Problem You'll benefit by taking a break and letting all the facts settle in your mind. This allows you space to learn and adapt from your experience and room to process what you have been thinking about and release negative emotions. Learning to think critically can take you and your work to the next level.

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In this chat I talk about how to become more effective at delegating.

First I talk about barriers to delegating.

• Not enough time to teach or train on how to perform the task
• Feeling of loss of control
• Feeling that you may lose credit
• Enjoying the task being delegated
• Feeling you can do this better
• Feeling you may be delegating yourself out of a job
• Lack of confidence in the team
• Team may say they don’t have the time
• Team member may have a fear of failure
• What else?

Next I talk about the benefits to delegating

• To the organization
• To you
• To your team
• To the individuals

I talk about part of your job as a leader being to

• Create capacity and capability
• Making sure work gets done at the right level

I make a case for building capability and capacity on your team

I explore what it looks like when work is getting done at the right level and when it is not

I close with several tips to delegating

Spend the time up front to clarify and align on

• The problem that needs to be solved
• The objective and the scope of what needs to be achieved
• The vision of success (the outcome)
• How success will be measured

Delegate the right level task/objective for each team member’s skill set

• Work with team member’s strength

Allow time for learning and growth

• Delegate important things, but consider carefully when needing to delegate urgent things

Create lists of questions or a template

• Share how you think about the task or the project

Set up a good cadence of accountability

• Set more frequent outcomes that together lead to the goal
• Check-in in a timely manner such that if the task/project is off track, there is time to have the team member get it back on track.

Be patient and supportive

• Mistakes will happen.  Adopt a growth mindset and help your team to learn from the mistakes.  Encourage them to keep learning and growing.

Resist the urge to “tell” or jump in and take over.

• Use the “Problem Ask” or “Solution Ask” technique when coaching

Do not abdicate accountability

• Ultimately, you are accountable.  Own that accountability.  You are responsible for the team’s success.

Recognize and celebrate success

Don’t give up.  Developing your team and learning to delegate takes time.

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In this chat, I talk about 7 things all great leaders do.  For some of these things, I have already discussed in detail in previous podcasts so I'll point out throughout this chat.

1. Great leaders improve how you are showing up

• Understanding how your nature affects the team
• Detecting if you am contributing to a problem
• Considering how you can improve
• Shaping a culture of learning and growing teach by example and use feedback as a tool for continuous improvement

- Podcast on EQ

2. Great leaders give meaning to the team

• Establishing the mission and vision of the team
• Setting rules, principles and values for the work the team is doing
• Planning short -term goals, both as a group and individually
• Establishing the roles and responsibilities of team members

- Podcast on Purpose and goals

3. Great leaders build a high performance teams

• Encouraging a deep and mutual understanding among team members
• Creating an environment of trust and interdependence
• With trust, we don't fear conflict.  We have healthy conflict where everyone speaks up and is heard
• With healthy conflict, we have commitment - even if the decision did not go our way
• With commitment we can have accountability
• With accountability, we pay attention to and deliver results
• All of this promotes teamwork

- Podcast on Credibility, Difficult conversations

4. Great leaders know how to motivate individual team members

• Detecting and understanding the needs and motivations of each person
• Comprehending and using motivational factors
• Using resources and tools to increase the motivation of the team and its members
• Using communication as a motivational tool
• Recognizing and rewarding results

5. Great leaders develop their people continuously

• Some of the most common areas of development are the fundamentals
• Improving communication skills of team members. Interpersonal communication
• Solving problems and making decisions
• Solving conflicts quickly and efficiently
• Improving the efficiency and effectiveness of daily work
• Time management

6. Great leaders see their job as improving the effectiveness of the team

• Delegate effectively. Allowing time for mistakes.
• Use Coaching as an effective tool to empower and develop their people
• Giving and receiving positive and negative feedback in a frequent and timely manner.

7. All of this is centered around great meaningful communication.  

• Communication that is concise, coherent, and relevant.

And they repeat this cycle endlessly.

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In this episode, I chat with my good friend Gustavo Guillemin about Communicating Across Cultures.  Gustavo is a published author, a Professor, and had delivered TEDTalks.  

The world today is Globalized.  We can often find ourselves in situations where we need to communicate effectively with people from different cultures.  This is not just a necessity at work. It is highly likely that your neighbors or the people you socialize with come from different cultures.

Gustavo and I share stories about times when we both made notable mistakes while communicating with people of different cultures.  

Gustavo also shares the Hofstede's cultural dimensions theory.  This is a framework for cross-cultural communication, developed by Geert Hofstede. It shows the effects of a society's culture on the values of its members, and how these values relate to behaviors, using a structure derived from factor analysis. 

If you work or communicate with people from different cultures, you'll find this chat very informative.

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