Author: thejoshbjones

“I’m just being honest” I’ve heard this too often as an excuse when someone is a jerk.
The goal is not simply to be Authentic. Be Intentional and that takes restraint.

It will help us all, including me, if you have internalized these thoughts for stopping yourself when you are offended:
-I represent more than me and not everybody would want me to respond this way.
-Other people could be damaged in their income and reputation by the words that I say. I need to let this one go for them.
-This could cost you personally and you need to mend relationships and not burn bridges.

Finally, what if they’re right?

I was listening to a discussion about this from Donald Miller and he gave a quote from someone he knows who works for a state governor. “Most of us overreact as quickly as possible.”

Let’s not. Take a point today and slow down

It’s Friday! What are you doing this weekend? Taking some time to rest, or intending to work through because you can get just that little bit further ahead?

Any human on the planet can work incredibly hard and be protected from burn out so long as they take at solid 24 hour period of time off in a consistent way every week.
E.G. I stop working when I turn everything down on Friday night (or early Saturday morning) and don’t start again until Sunday afternoon. So a little over 24 hours, but it’s the same every week.

This past Saturday I was tempted to dive into something later in the evening and opted not to. Waited until Sunday afternoon and found I had much more energy for it.

This isn’t purely a physical rest requirement. It’s mental, emotional, and spiritual. Burnout, every time i’ve encountered it, isn’t physical. There can be physical aspects, but it’s primarily mental, emotional, spiritual.

You have more value than what you produce. The discipline of stopping is a thing that frustrates you into simultaneously believing and experiencing this as a truth of your life.

There’s a common complaint i’ve heard about moving the needle on a person. If it’s unintentionally done, then I can see how this would be terrible for moral and lead to reduced performance over time. Countering that, the action isn’t inherently bad.

How do you run a longer distanced race than one you’ve previously run? You increase the distance goal.

How do you earn more money? You set a target and work backwards for what you need to do to get there.

As you grow and change your goals will also need to do that. As an organization grows the changing of the goals is necessitated.

Moving the needle isn’t bad. Doing so without context is terrible. Doing so because of a stated mission is life giving to the entire organization.

What is your organizations stated mission and where do you need to “move the needle” to get to a preferred future?

Take a breath. Ask “how can I help?” when your stuck not knowing how to give good feedback.

This is a pomodoro timer that my wife gave me a few years back. It’s great for a lot of productivity hacks. One being, what to do when you need to give feedback but are frustrated and don’t know what to say. hit the 3 minute side and breath.

I just had an employee who wasn’t performing to, what I felt, was their best. I started typing out something towards feedback with them. I couldn’t find the words that would give them the appropriate feedback while also helping them see I was on their side after several retypes. Hit the pomodoro timer and stop. I really only needed 30 seconds. Rephrased the thing with an ending statement like this: “I need you to be able to _________. Is there anything I can do to help you ______________?”

Stop. Take a breath. If you can end the statement with the phrase above, you’re probably in the right ballpark.

The litmus test for knowing what to say and not to say when giving feedback is not “Is it honest?” but rather “Is it helpful?”

I can operate quickly, but that also can make me impatient. I have a trick for mitigating being impatient in meetings.

Several years ago I realized about halfway through a meeting (e.g. 30 minutes into an hour long meeting), I would begin to speed up and try to rush the conversation. You can imagine that the output of this wasn’t always great. Rushing a conversation does not lead to great decision making.

After some negative impacts of this once or twice, I began to notice this at times. It came around times that I felt extra stress of workload assigned to me. Noticing is great, but what to do about it? This is how I found my secret trick.

At one point, I realized I was starting to feel pressure to rush a conversation in the middle of a meeting. I had enough awareness to look at the clock on my screen and that’s when I realized that there’s about 30 minutes left in the meeting. What was the point of rushing? We had the time. So I slowed down and the conversation proceeded to a good end result.

So that’s my trick for feeling rushed in meetings. There’s more to it than that, I’ve also had to figure out what to do when you are actually running up on time. More on that later. But in terms of rushing a conversation because you feel pressure while others aren’t, that’s not needed. To do this there are two things you need:

1) Enough awareness to know how you’re feeling in the moment.
2) A system to mitigate that is quick and helps reset.

Doesn’t have to be the same method as mine, but you do need one if you’re leading people. What do you do to mitigate your own unhelpful proclivities?

A few businesses ago I had an interaction with someone who was new to an organization. They had joined to replace another person that exited (who I also happened to know). One of the things that came up in the conversation was a specific vendor. In this instance I happened to also know the vendor and the details around how both sides negotiated and setup their agreement. I’m not attached to either directly as an employee, but know both as a third party and like both organizations.

The previous person wasn’t happy with the agreement they signed. There are many reasons for this, but my primary assessment is buyer’s clarity and remorse. Almost immediately after signing there were questions about the vendor not doing what they agreed to, even though the expectations were clearly being met based on the outlined agreement. Without going into details here, there is also an argument to be made that the issue was wrong fit. More was expected than what was being paid for and there were significant budgetary constraints on the client end compared to the service they desired.

The thing that was interesting about this conversation was that the new person happened to be questioning this vendor’s utility without having ever had a meeting with the other organization. It makes sense. When the previous person left they gave the incoming staff a list of their frustrations about the other organization. So now the new person can’t walk into a meeting with a new relationship and a truly objective view. I gave the new person some counsel about places where I saw misalignment and some things to look at on the agreement and how to possibly reposition for greater alignment to organization needs and value creation.

What I know in these situations is that the best thing for everyone is to find places for alignment and value creation. The previous person seemed to close to it to be able to do that and might have even caused the incoming staff to live with the same issue while they exited. There’s a thing about putting people in a box like that in your mind. It’s in your mind and you’re the only person who can release them. If you never do that work, then eventually you’ll work to help other people see them in the same box. This greatly reduces the opportunity for greater service to others and greater value creation for all. Tending the mental garden so bitter roots don’t spring up is the only way you can get to a place of true service to others.

How are you doing with the other orgs you work with? Need to take a step back today and reset or are you crushing this? I want advice on both sides.