The Whole-Person Leadership Model – The Key to Increasing Influence and Feeling Fulfilled

Date: 08/12/2016

Time: 1470996000 - 1470999600 PST

For the last 15 years Susan and I have coached leaders and worked with their teams to use the energy of conflict to get to creative and innovative strategies that increase their profitability and success.

What we have seen, and you have probably noticed too, is that the corporate world is changing and people are no longer willing to just put in their time.  They want fulfillment, work/life balance, meaning and purpose.

It isn’t just about playing a part perfectly so that you get the promotion, more money and climb the ladder. We see leaders that want to increase their influence as well as their internal sense of fulfillment and that takes practicing Whole Person Leadership.

Whole Person Leadership means leaders become crystal clear inside about what matters most to them, using their internal felt sense to guide their decision-making, speaking up when they are uncomfortable, acknowledging when they don’t know an answer or have made make a mistake.  They are real people.  As result of demonstrating vulnerability, Whole Person Leaders create an environment that invites dialogue, feedback, and new ideas.

Leaders that play it safe and don’t want to rock the boat, try to be nice and polite, while they look good on the outside are playing a role, adding less value and innovation to the organization. These play-it-safe leaders may have a title but lack the influence to keep people engaged and passionate over time.

Whole Person Leaders:

  • Refuse to rely on their role for credibility.
  • Greet conflict and disagreement as an opportunity not a threat.
  • Know they always have a choice and feel empowered.
  • Value honesty over looking good.
  • Work with their own stress response in difficult situations.
  • Regard emotional responses with acceptance.
  • Speak up in the toughest of circumstances, risk saying what everyone else is thinking.
  • Are the most influential no matter where they sit in the organization.
  • Focus and value both relationships and results.
  • Know influence is not controlling people but comes from leading congruently from the inside out.

Session Objectives:

  • Understand the principles of Whole-Person Leadership
  • Identify how the habitual well-meaning coping styles work against effective leadership
  • Learn practical tools that influence, connect, and enhance job fulfillment
  • Provide professionals with an innovative and revolutionary new look at their impact in the organization.

Thrive! Team
CrisMarie and Susan have spent the last 15 years specialize in working with leaders whose teams are stuck in unhealthy conflict and underperforming. They help teams engage in the energy of conflict, transforming it into creative, innovative and profitable results.

CrisMarie Campbell, BS in Mechanical Engineering, MBA

CrisMarie has a passion for leadership and teams. As an Olympic and World Championship rower, she learned firsthand what makes a championship team versus simply a team of champions. As a Boeing Engineer she helped initiate a groundbreaking cross-functional team approach for how Boeing designs and builds airplanes. As a Manager at Arthur Andersen, she coached executive business leaders around the country on the secrets to making big changes stick in their organizations. As a member of The Table Group Consulting Group, Patrick Lencioni’s (author, Five Dysfunctions of a Team) elite consulting team, she honed her ability to turn around a team in two days flat. In 2002 CrisMarie co-founded Thrive! with Susan Clarke to share her unique perspective to a wider audience making relationships matter as much as business results.

Susan Clarke, BS in Education, MA

At the age of 24, when doctors gave her just six months to live, Susan stepped into a leadership role in her life, identifying a diverse group of smart health-care professionals and rallying them to act together as a team to provide her a path back to health. Through this extraordinary health success, she honed her skills as a facilitator, educator, and coach leading transformational programs at the Haven, the prestigious professional development center in BC, Canada; facilitating in native communities, deftly navigating cultural differences to create understanding and healing; and coaching “stalled” corporate executives and teams around the globe.  More recently she has become a Certified Equus Coach, utilizing horses as a tool in her leadership and team coaching. With curiosity, compassion, and laser-focus, Susan helps leaders identify and eliminate blocks that keep them stuck, and increase their influence, vitality, and momentum in their work and their lives.

Read the Full Transcription of “Whole-Person Leadership- The Key to Increasing Influence and Feeling FulFilled”

Jenifer: Good morning and welcome to HR Hotspot. I’m Jenifer Lambert. And it is my pleasure to introduce to you this morning’s speakers and this morning’s program. If this is your first time with “HR Hotspot” this is a monthly webcast series that we provide at no cost. It is our gift to you as our friends and clients and partners. We want to bring you valuable information to help you manage all aspects of your business but in particular, the people part of your business. Which can sometimes be the most complex and the most challenging, but also the most rewarding and where there’s the most payoff.

And so really happy this month to have speakers with us that we’ve had the pleasure of having on this program before. They’re back by popular demand, we’ve had very good feedback about their previous program. And I have to share I was so impressed with the program they did with us last time that I reached out and said can you come work with our team? And they actually facilitated our executive team retreat last fall. And it was…to say it was transformative would not be an understatement. And so I firsthand had the pleasure of working with CrisMarie Campbell and Susan Clarke from Thrive. And we’ve been the beneficiaries of their work.

So very excited to introduce them to you today. They both have very impressive bios. And I’m gonna let them tell you more about their own background. But I will just tell you that they come with a tremendous amount of credibility, bringing more than 15 years of experience consulting with companies across all types of industries. Helping organizations work more effectively, and helping leaders be more effective in their roles. And so without further ado… Actually, before I turn it over to them, I’ll just tell you very quickly.

We will be potentially having some time for questions and answers. So do feel free to fill in some questions or write some questions in your control panel. But there’s a lot of content to go through this morning. And so we may or may not get to those. But do feel free to submit those and we’ll get to those if we can. And so without further ado, it is my pleasure to introduce to you CrisMarie Campbell and Susan Clarke from Thrive. Take it away, ladies.

CrisMarie: Thank you, Jenifer. I’m CrisMarie.

Susan: And I’m Susan.

CrisMarie: So you get used to our voices. And oops, we cannot close the… Oops, you’re gonna actually… We’re having a little difficulty in changing the slides.

Susan: Believe it or not.

CrisMarie: There we go. This is…it’s just not going away. Let’s try…

Jenifer: Sounds like we’ve lost audio. If you can bear with us momentarily. It looks like potentially CrisMarie and Susan may have logged themselves out. So if you can just all hold tight they should be back momentarily.

CrisMarie: Can you hear us now?

Jenifer: We can hear you now.

Susan: We need to get the slides up.

Jenifer: But we’re not seeing your slides.

Susan: Okay, we’re working on that. We’re trying not to consider this a crisis but stay calm, we can get ourselves back in line. CrisMarie, you need to go back and go down to the bottom of this and go in. We had a disconnect from our computer, we’re reconnecting now and trying to bring the slides back up again. So hopefully we will be with you in just a minute.

Jenifer: All right.

Susan: And this is one of those things where you kind of wish things like this didn’t happen. You feel that vulnerability but we will find a way through it.

Jenifer: You will, I have absolutely no doubt and we’re good.

Susan: Okay. All right. And I think I will have to take my audio off as soon as she comes on. Otherwise, we may get some backlash. But I will make sure she’s on first and everything is working before I disconnect this audio.

CrisMarie: We should be on.

Susan: I’m gonna turn down the volume [inaudible 00:04:13].

CrisMarie: Okay, can you hear us, Jen?

Jenifer: I can hear you.

CrisMarie: Okay, excellent. We can turn the slides. Let’s go. I was holding my breath that whole time. Not a good thing. So, today what we’re gonna do is you’ll learn the principles…

Jenifer: CrisMarie, we’re actually not seeing your slides.

CrisMarie: Okay. Oh, I have to share my screen probably. Thank you for letting me know. Audio, no, that’s video. Now you’re gonna see us. How do I share my screen?

Susan: You should be…

CrisMarie: Oh, there they come, show my screen. There it is. All right, play.

Jenifer: There we go.

CrisMarie: Okay, let’s see if we can go back.

Jenifer: Excellent, we’re in business.

CrisMarie: Okay, just gotta [inaudible 00:05:04] fast enough so they don’t go down.

Jenifer: We’re good.

CrisMarie: Okay. So today what you’re gonna learn are the Principles of Whole Person Leadership, and how coping styles interfere with leadership success. And we’re gonna introduce you to what we think is a revolutionary leadership coaching approach and give you tools to increase, whether it’s your leadership fulfillment, and influence or the leaders that you’re coaching. So today, we’re gonna talk to you as if you know, you’re a leader, but also in the context of you working with leaders. So both things.

And this is me, CrisMarie Campbell. So I’ll give you a little background about me. It’s kind of neat that the Olympics are happening right now for me. I was a member of the 1988 Olympic team. Those Olympics were in Seoul, Korea, and I was on the women’s rowing team. And really today is the women’s rowing finals and the U.S. are doing awesome. So I’m very excited today.

But besides that, I went on to become a Boeing flight test engineer for the Drupal 7. Went back to get my MBA and worked at Arthur Andersen. And as a manager at Arthur Andersen, I was rocking it. I was coaching leaders on change management. So much so that my manager said, “Hey, CrisMarie, we want you to start and build the change management practice.” And I was like, woohoo. But when I tried to develop a strategy and figure out how to do that, I couldn’t do it. And I was flabbergasted because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t come up with what I should do. And I wasn’t willing to ask for help. And I was embarrassed, I thought I should know.

And there was a lot of other things happening. Like when I did leave the Olympics, we had lost. So I just disconnected from the team, from the sport, and I left with a back injury that I kept trying to fix. So there was a lot of pressure on me as this rising leader. I finally did ask for help not from inside the organization but I asked for coaching help. And I recognized just how compartmentalized I had been living my life. Who I am naturally is emotionally expressive, creative. And I had felt like you know, none of that is gonna be okay in the business world. So I shut that down.

I wasn’t utilizing my Olympic experience. When Susan met me she…you know, I about bit her head off when she said, “Tell me about the Olympics,” because it was just something that I had just said, you know, that doesn’t exist for me, because we had lost. And so as I worked with this coach, I actually turned towards and felt the grief of losing in the Olympics. And as I did that, my back injury got better. I was more creative. And two years later, Susan and I started our own consulting firm. And by the way, I had no problems developing a strategy. We were right out of the gates, happy and you know, moving forward and successful.

And I attribute that because I had so many more horsepower because I was integrating and bringing more of who I was to the role. And more recently I’ve become more mind-body coach and what I call an embodiment coach to help people bring in all aspects of who they are or more of who they are to the work that they do because we think it leads to so much more creative results. I’ll let Susan introduce herself.

Susan: Well, this is me. And I kind of came into this… When I was in my 20s I was kind of launching into what I thought was gonna be my career at that particular time, but I developed an illness, a cancer. And by the time they caught it, it was fairly advanced. I had a medical team that put me into a pretty advanced protocol around it. And what happened when I was just kind of like great, all right, I know what to do now. I just show up, do the treatments and I’m gonna get better. And nine months into my treatments I went in to see my doctor after doing a series of tests. And the news I got was that the cancer was advancing. Not only that, but they didn’t have any other alternatives.

And basically what my doctor presented me with was that I had, likely six months to live. And I remember it was like a moment where everything stopped. And I really got…I think it was the first time I ever stepped into considering myself a leader. And frankly, when I stepped into that leadership role, I had not a clue what I was gonna do, because I didn’t have a solution. But what I did decide to do was I wasn’t just gonna go the medical route. And so I started exploring spirituality, diet, nutrition, emotional work, all sorts of other avenues to take a look at what was going on with my health. And what was surprising was that you know, I meet these experts in different areas but they were really quite hostile and didn’t really wanna communicate with each other.

And I found myself suddenly thrown into this situation where it was up to me to get the information and find a way to integrate it, and include it in how I wanted to go forward with my own treatments. And also to deal with the conflict that frankly existed between these experts. So seven years later, took a while, actually three cancers later. I ended up getting a clean bill of health. And I realized that what I was pretty passionate about was using the energy of conflict, to get to better results. And helping people really show up fully, and even in their differences, to find a way through that and more effectively deal with it.

And last year, we did a TED talk, and it’s called “Conflict: Use It, Don’t Defuse It.” You can see it on YouTube and we talk about the impact of family of origin, and how you show up in conflict. And also how you can take that and utilize it… Be more effective using and working with your team.

So we wanna just show you this is the model we use with teams. The path of collective creativity on teams. Now, we did this as a talk last year, July 17th. Five keys to a smart and healthy team, you’re welcome to go back and listen to that. But the primary purpose of that was we believe when smart people get together who are passionate about a vision, you imagine that it’s gonna go easily. And what really happens is you have different opinions, strong emotion, tension builds, and you reach what we finally refer to as an “oh beep” moment.

And at that point, most of us are not that good at dealing with conflict and we do things to opt-out. And we believe that really the challenge is to learn how to opt-in. And there are three key focus areas that we think are important, the me, the we, and the business. Now, we’re not gonna spend time on this today, but we wanted to reference it. Because today what we’re gonna be talking about primarily is the me, and we’re gonna bring it back into the we. So we wanted to start with the overall picture.

CrisMarie: So really the me is whole-person leadership, how you show up as a whole person. And we’re gonna start with some theory, and then we’ll get to some practicality. So as human beings, we are made up of energy. And if you doubt that, all you have to do is look at us in life. Like you have physical energy, you’re running, joy, emotional energy, there’s anger, thinking energy, spiritual energy, where you’re meditating, and also could be depression. All those are the ways we’re processing our energy in the world.

And meet Joe, leader Joe. So Joe has beliefs, feelings, wants, he has a context, which is his background, where he comes from, all the way to the role he’s playing now, the current project he’s on, and he also has significant emotional events. Those are events that have had big impacts on him from when he was a little kid all the way up to what’s just happened.

Susan: Now, what happens if we imagine that leader Joe is a project leader for an important product launch that’s gonna take place in six months, and that’s a challenge in and of itself. That he’s got his own beliefs about how that’s going, what he wants to see happen, how he’s feeling about it, how he’s done on another project, all of that. And in comes some new information, he gets word that his deadline has now been cut to three months instead of six months.

CrisMarie: Holy moly, that’s an oh shit…an “oh bleep” moment.

Susan: Poor Joe. Now what often happens in this…we’re gonna switch gears just a little bit.

CrisMarie: So imagine this is another version of Joe, hang in with us here. This is Joe and the box is like his physical body. And those feelings, and beliefs, and wants, and experiences are all those big and small bubbles inside of him. And there’s not a lot of room you can see in that little container because Joe’s container is pretty tight. And so when new information comes in, like oh my gosh, you have three months less time to get your work done, you can imagine that would be pretty darn stressful. And so what typically happens we see in the business world is Joe reacts. In some way he wants to release this energy, it’s too much for him.

Susan: Now we see those reactions come in classically four different styles: emotionally, physically, mentally, or spiritually. And we wanna sort of walk you through that a little bit, what we mean by that.

CrisMarie: And this is typically what we see, it’d be interesting if you think of people around you if you can notice these types of reactions. So the emotional reaction is first…you know, so the emotional reaction is you’re either gonna explode or implode. And so, you know, Joe, if Joe has all of a sudden got his timeline cut three months, he might, oh my god, I can’t believe it. He might go out and yell at his team. He might yell at his boss, or he’ll implode meaning like, “Oh my god, I don’t know how I’m gonna handle that.” And get obsessive and crushed and maybe even depressed and get immobile because he’s turning that energy inside. That’s one reaction.

Susan: The next is the mental reaction. Now this one is probably a little more common in the sense of business leaders often can become overly rational. What they wanna do in the case of this panic, is collect even more information, more data, more…

CrisMarie: Analysis.

Susan: And this can result in analysis paralysis, they’re stuck right there and that mental reaction.

CrisMarie: And they’re not really available to people in that mode. The third reaction is a physical reaction and this is when people get stressed. What happens is they show up with physical symptoms or they get sick. And sometimes they could be… We had BP, heart palpitations it can…go ahead.

Susan: Well, you describe.

CrisMarie: Oh, and my chronic back injury and when I was stressed, it would get really, really…like I could hardly stand up. So symptoms get louder or there’s even people that go “Oh, you know what, I can’t handle this.” And they get sick and they’re out of the office when it gets really stressful.

Susan: The last one is what we refer to as a spiritual reaction. And the tendency there…these are people that often have compartmentalized a lot of their lives. And in that type of situation, like if this were Joe, Joe would wanna rise above it. Like, I know I can handle this. I’m not gonna let anyone see that I can’t handle it. I’m not gonna tell anyone at home about it. I’m not gonna tell even my team about it, I’m gonna take care of it myself because that’s what I need to do.

CrisMarie: Or I’ll tell my team about the deadline change, but I’m not gonna tell them that I’m upset about it, you know. And then he’s not actually really willing to work with people who are upset about the timeline change. So these are the reactions that we see people have. And the issue with reacting, it’s human. But the problem is we’re trying to get rid of something, there’s a right wrongness about it. And when somebody is reacting that way, they’re separating from their resources. And there’s a sense of feeling divided and tight and really, you’re not operating holistically.

And the traditional… This is where traditional business coaching comes in. And it has a very cognitive and behavioral focus, which is not bad, it’s just only part of the equation. Because when you’re doing that, you’re really focusing on the mind. And if you see this is another version of Joe, let’s say, you’ve got mind, emotions, spirit, and body. And when we try to have a cognitive or behavioral approach, it may create a better version of managing their reaction, but it’s not holistic, and it will reinforce the mind.

And the mind you know what, our mind is a great thing, but it’s a good manager. It’s not a good CEO. When we make it the CEO of us, we wind up not being able to basically follow through with these great ideas. Because really, the CEO needs to be, in my opinion, our spirit, our heart that drives what we’re doing. And the mind is a great implementer and problem solver and strategist but not necessarily the direction keeper. So we think it really limits and creates a lower resource leader when you don’t include these other areas, but you keep reinforcing the mind. So there is another way, you can expand that tight little container with all those balls in it that we were showing you earlier.

Susan: So going back to Joe, when Joe gets that information that his project deadline has been cut to three months, he may go through that reaction, he may go through any one of those reactions. And at that point, he has a choice. And what we believe that the other choice is to expand and include even the reactivity. And that’s what we wanna talk about, how does Joe do that? And the first thing is that really this is what we mean by expanding that container. So it…the physical nature of that container. So there’s more room for all of Joe to exist.

CrisMarie: Because when there’s no room that’s that reactive tendency. So we wanna be able to create more room. And this is what we believe is a revolutionary approach to business coaching, which is called whole person leadership coaching because it has an embodiment focus. And it’s crazy to think that we don’t walk around…Sometimes we walk around thinking our bodies are just this tool and they’re getting in my way. But actually, the body is the doorway to all your resources. And in our culture, we have not really utilized that as much. We tend to think it’s a tool, it’s broken, we wanna fix it rather than using it as a resource.

So the body is a doorway to the emotional resource, mental, physical, and spiritual. We’re gonna go through how. And, really, the goal in the whole person leadership is helping the leader access each of their resources. The leader will feel…As human beings, we feel more fulfilled. And actually like me in business, I had so much more horsepower when I included more of me, rather than just trying to control myself with my mind, because there’s only so much you can do there.

Susan: So we wanna walk you through now what we think of as some of the primary focus of embodiment tools. And we’re gonna start off with what is…the whole purpose of this.

CrisMarie: Is to settle the nervous system and land in and utilize the body as a resource and expand that physical container. Which when you expand and utilize the body, expand that container, you have more room for your emotions, more room for what’s coming up around purpose and meaning, and spirit. And also, you can think differently mentally. And you know what, this an always-available tool, which is breathing. And this is a quote that I found “Change your breath, and you’ll change your life.” And we don’t think about this. Like even when our little kerfuffle happened at the beginning of the webinar, I was holding my breath, not very useful.

So we think…Actually, in moments of stress, I should have taken my own medicine is doing some conscious breathing and we call this four-four-six. And it’s just a way you can do it in the middle of a stressful conversation, in the middle of a meeting. And it’s just changing your breath pattern where you’re inhaling for a count of four, and hold for a count of four, and then exhale for a count of six. And if you do this three to five times, it actually settles your nervous system, and you start to have more access. More oxygen goes to your brain, it also goes to your body and you settle down, and you’re more resourced. Now you also have, if you’re interested in this, you can do focus breathing, which, over time helps you expand that container and connect to the body and notice what you’re feeling.

Susan: A couple of things about this approach of focus breathing, it is different than just simply meditation. The idea is to actually use the breath, be breathing, and tracking and noticing what you feel and where you feel it in your body. And sometimes in more meditative breath, you’re actually working to go inward and access a particular sense of calm. With this, you’re not necessarily looking to stay calm, you’re looking more from a place of curiosity…

CrisMarie: And connection.

Susan: And connection and what am I feeling in my body, and where do I feel it, as an access point.

CrisMarie: And if we have an mp3, if you’re interested and you need some support, you can email us and we’ll send you that just to support you trying it on. So we really believe breathing is a surefire way to expand your container. And there’s lots of information out there, and we don’t utilize it in the business realm. And we think it’s very powerful.

Susan: And we think it really is the starting point for working with any leader. So for you know, those of you that your primary focus is working with other leaders, this is the place to start. Because getting someone out of that reactivity likely isn’t gonna happen until they’re willing to expand their container to some extent.

CrisMarie: And now we wanna talk about…So you’re working with leaders that tend to have these types of reactions, we wanna give you some tools to work with them. So the emotional reaction, somebody that’s exploding or imploding. The goal is really to allow that emotional energy to move through the system because it’s not going away. It’s you know, the way we are human beings and we have that emotional energy. And the key is you wanna find some way to allow that expression to occur, but in a safe way, and not detrimental to what’s going on in the office.

Susan: So we just wanna give you a practical example from our experience. This is someone I worked with, Chester. And Chester was actually up and coming, he was a CEO of a large organization…

CrisMarie: COO.

Susan: COO, sorry. He was the COO of a large organization in China. He was actually being groomed to be the next CEO. However, he had an anger problem. And they had tried emotional intelligence work, they had tried anger management, they had tried… So they shipped him from China to one of our programs. And when Chester arrived, his incoming announcement was “I’m here to get rid of my anger.” Which, you know, I tend to be a little blunt, and I was like, well, good luck with that. Which, you know…however, I challenged Joe, I said okay…

CrisMarie: It’s Chester.

Susan: Chester, sorry, I challenged Chester to actually rethink that, and if he would be willing to try on some different ways that instead of trying to get rid of his anger, to find healthier ways to express it. Now, what I discovered about Chester was he has a real love of rock and roll music. So he discovered that when he was…he gave himself permission to put on his headphones and sing at the top of his lungs rock and roll songs, he actually felt much better. Well, what Chester did…this actually helped him begin to consider this energy much differently. And when you cut back over into China into his organization, he actually would go like he could feel, he recognized I can notice in my body when that energy is beginning to build.

CrisMarie: Because he’s been doing the embodiment tools.

Susan: And instead of deciding that he was just gonna get rid of it, he would go into his office, he would say, “Give me a break.” He’d go into his office put on his rock and roll. And the way the story is told from other people is they would hear him in there, making quite the racket. And then he would come out, and he would be way more productive. He’d be able to talk about what he was upset about. He could engage with people. And they actually found it so exciting that they asked him to design these expressive labs or something like that. And the funniest part about Chester was he attributed to the American business culture.

CrisMarie: He thinks this is a way American business is run.

Susan: Anyway, but that’s an example of where he wasn’t giving himself permission to actually use that energy in an expressive way so that he could then integrate it into who he wanted to be as a leader.

CrisMarie: So you know, to be creative with this is you know, at work, you’re not gonna sit there and yell, but if you have an office you can go and you know, put on some music and make some sound. You can actually scribble on a piece of paper really violently. Or if you have a trusted resource, go into their office and just say, “Can I have a minute to vent.” And when you vent, the energy doesn’t, you know, then you can actually figure out what it is that you really need to do. So these are just different ways to allow the energy to move. Because it’s a freight train inside of you and when you try to stop it, it’s gonna skurt out some way and be unproductive. And so we believe when you find creative ways to work with your own energy or help a leader work with their energy, they’ll be more settled and think more clearly, and not blow up on other people.

So, mental reaction tools, so this is where somebody gets very objective and they’re analyzing. You wanna see if you can support them, including their emotional resources because that’s what they’re trying to get rid of. And the key is to stop overthinking. And that’s the toughest thing to do.

Susan: Sometimes this can be the most challenging…for me one of the more challenging types of people to work with. Because, frankly, they’ve been usually rewarded quite heavily for their rational, logical brain. And I wanna give you an example of a gentleman who came to work with us, Andrew. And Andrew was a very successful member of his organization. He traveled throughout the world as an IT expert, he was very close with the founders of the organization.

However, you know, what happened for Andrew was we had come to do some work with the organization. And we were talking about this whole notion of fulfillment and lightness and we were doing various things and, you know, Andrew was there but he was a little held back and you know, not as engaged. And later he called saying, you know, I realized as successful as I am, I am really unfulfilled. I don’t have the relationship, the people that I want, I connect to my clients, but there’s something missing. And he said, “You know, I’m not really sure I even wanna do this work because, you know, I don’t know where it’s going.”

But he said, “You guys sort of fascinated me.” And the way he did it was he signed up to come out and work with the horses, which is something else that we do. Because it was far away from his business world, no one was gonna know he was here, and he could imagine…

CrisMarie: In Montana.

Susan: In Montana. But what was fascinating was when he…we’d started working with the embodiment tools. And he was quite resistant, he said it, even to doing the breathing because he realized that he had been very disconnected from his body for a long time. But what was even more amazing was when he got into the arena with the horses. And you need to understand the work with the horses is that you’re not riding them. They’re just there in an arena and you’re developing a relationship with them.

And what was fascinating was each of the horses that Andrew worked with, those horses would come around him and they would actually literally put their nose to his chest. And he was quite moved by this, but he was also like, no. And he realized…you know, I just encouraged him, why don’t you try putting your hand on your chest? And he did. And he said, “I will never do this in a business context.” You know, I was like, okay, fine, just do it here in Montana, you’re safe, you know. But as he realized when he started to do that, that he actually felt more, he had access to a lot more, he felt his body, he could make decisions easier. It was quite fascinating to work with him over time.

And he actually went back and, you know, he agreed to try it on, just touching his chest periodically. And that was a huge move for him. He actually realized that he became much more engaged with people, he connected with the founders more, he was able to bring more of his own life and fulfillment into his world.

CrisMarie: So you know, when you have somebody who’s really analytical, you’re not gonna actually get them to talk about their feelings, that’s the last thing they wanna do. But you can help them when they’re stuck with this, like Joe, the change in deadline. Let’s look at the worst-case scenario. Tell me what you’re worried about, and what’s the impact with this new timeline gonna have on you and other people? And as they start to do that, they will naturally access more of themselves, the emotional pieces and even possibly feel how they feel in their body.

And really, you’re tapping into what’s underneath the data of the situation. And then this person isn’t so…because they can get stuck in analysis paralysis with this type of reaction. And so there’s a lot more movement and access to resources, their container expands.

So the physical reaction tools. So this is when somebody shows up with physical symptoms, heart palpitations. And the goal is actually to help them utilize the information from those physical sensations. And again, this is a different point of view, because we tend to think of our body as a tool, it’s broken. Hey, doctor, fix me. And we actually think your body is trying to give you information. It’s part of your team. And so when physical sensations or symptoms come up, you actually wanna say hello to them. Because imagine…and then this might be a stretch. But imagine they’re there for some good reason and you can get curious about them.

So I’ll actually stay on that one. I was working with a VP, her name was Sherry. And we had been working on some stuff and she’s a product launcher. She had lots of different products she was launching. And we were helping her do that successfully. But what she noticed is she’d get stressed and she’d get hives. And I was just on the call with her actually just earlier this week and she said, “I just have these hives.” And I said, Sherry, just slow down a minute and see if you can actually turn towards the hives as if they’re another person. And I know that sounds weird, but just turn towards them and say hello. And she got quiet. And she did and I just said what do you notice now? And she goes “I’m really really irritated.”

And she started to talk about what was irritating her. She goes, “I have this co-worker, they’re relentless, they won’t stop bugging me about the product release. And they’re really not helping me because I always have to pay attention to them.” And as she talked about this, she said, “You know what, they’re getting less itchy right now, my hives are settling down.” And she just actually called me yesterday and said, “You know what, they keep coming up but I say hello, and they settle down.” And Sherry is somebody that’s taken a lot of time off for physical ailments in the past. And it’s a way to actually stop that I can’t solve this and I’m gonna opt-out basically, by getting sick. To actually develop a relationship with the physical symptoms in a proactive, healthy way.

So that’s what you wanna do. You wanna turn towards your sensations in the body, acknowledge, say hello, and be curious. Imagine that your body is on the same team and it’s trying to communicate something to you. And the benefit is you gain insight from your body. And you have a lot more energy for the work that you’re doing. So people stay at the office more and get work done.

Susan: So the other, the spiritual reaction tools. The goal here is to bring more information into the broader situation. So when someone is having a spiritual reaction, often what we were talking about earlier, there’s compartmentalization to it. And just to kind of give you an example of this one. I was working with a gentleman who was really, you know, he was responsible for a key project that was happening. And he’s always been a pretty good leader, great leader, but some things were happening.

People were considering him, they couldn’t approach him, he was difficult to reach, people thought he was more, you know, pointing the finger at them, kind of aloof, unavailable, arrogant, detached. And that, you know, this is how he showed up to work with me. And when I was working with him, we spent some time with the embodiment tools. And what came up was that what was happening alongside this monster project was his mother had dementia and was being put into a…he was having to coordinate putting her into a home. No one knew anything about it. I think I was the first person he had actually told it to.

CrisMarie: Outside the family.

Susan: Outside of the family. And, you know, I was like, do you realize that this might have an impact on what’s going on? That yes, there’s stress at work, but there’s other things going on. And he recognized how much at least telling me had helped him. And I encouraged him this might be one of those situations where you’ve compartmentalized a little too much, and there might be a way in which helping somebody at work know what’s going on would be useful.

It took him a little bit of time to make the decision to do that. But when he started to share, not all the details, he didn’t need to go into it, but to let people know what was happened in his life, to break down some of those compartments a bit. He had a lot more energy and was much more available. Plus, the people in his team found him more accessible human and could deal more effectively with him.

CrisMarie: So when you have somebody that’s kind of rising above, transcending, you really want to support them talking about the situation in a broader context. So not separating, or I don’t bring that up, home and work. And also mindfulness or even meditating is helpful for somebody who has this preference in reacting. And the benefit is it like Susan says, it breaks down the compartmentalization which again, gives so much more energy to the person and they settle, their container grows, and they have more access to their other resources.

And really, that’s the goal of all of these. When you expand your physical container we’re talking about the embodiment tools and breathing, then work through your reactions, whatever style that is your preference, you access and integrate all your resources. Your container is bigger, you feel more fulfilled, and you just have, like I said, more horsepower to give to the work that you’re doing.

Susan: So again, this is just…we’re going back to this because now that Joe has…you know, our leader, Joe has learned, he’s gonna do the reactions, that’s probably gonna keep happening, but he has choice in it. And when he makes that choice to expand and include, then there’s the next level of this that we start to focus on. So it’s really important to do that first piece of embodiment first. The next is what we refer to as Turn 180.

CrisMarie: And again, we’ll just give you a little bit of kind of theory, and then we’ll give you the practical tools. We often start with what looks like a work problem, we’re frustrated, we have a work problem. And then as we go forward, this work problem really becomes about, for me, becomes about Susan, she’s the problem. And then as we go deeper, we think it’s a problem with the relationship. Well, I don’t know if we can really work together, you’re just this way that way or that way.

Susan: She’s too perfectionist.

CrisMarie: Yeah. And then we go…This is me, we look deeper. And the problem is I’m actually trying to fix Susan because she’s highly creative, but I want her to be more organized and on deadlines. And at the very core, we tend to think the problem of the world is outside of us. So if I sit there and try to fix and control Susan, I’m not looking at me and how I’m creating the situation. And it’s kind of pointless it doesn’t work.

Susan: And it’s, you know, how many times I imagine you’ve bump to this with leadership is the focus is on trying to figure out who’s to blame, how it happened, what happened? It’s like putting a magnifying glass on the problem and looking at all the different parts and who was it who really screwed up? You know, I know I’ve done it and I know I see that happen with leaders a lot. And what we often say is instead of a magnifying glass on the situation or on others, pick up the mirror and look at yourself.

CrisMarie: Because we’re… I mean this happens even when we work with leaders and teams, they’re like, yeah, I want you to help come in and work with my team because you know, they have some problems. And they’re omitting…not all leaders, but often they’re omitting that they’re part of the situation. We cannot not be part of the situation, they’re in the system. So they have a way that they are influencing the situation. And so our job is to help them turn 180 and look at that.

And the benefit is when you turn 180, it allows you to take self-responsibility and look at how you might be unconsciously even contributing to the situation. And when you do that you can actually get to more empowered action and choices and proactive action.

So the tool that we use is called Turn 180. And the idea is to look inside and identify what’s happening in there. And if you’re coaching a leader, the goal is to help the leader identify what and how they’re creating their own experience. And ironically, the solutions will come from that internal focus. It’s very powerful.

Susan: So just quickly to kind of set this up for you a little bit. Often, when a leader comes in they may be presenting something. You probably heard this from people you work with. “You know, my boss is a slacker” or “My co-workers are slackers.” You know, “My peer wants to run the place and I’m sick of her.” “He’s a jerk,” you know.

CrisMarie: So they come to you to complain.

Susan: And really the key you know, after…and again, this starts with the embodiment work, we think.

CrisMarie: The breathing and the…

Susan: And then when they turn 180 they can begin to see, wait a minute, I’m frustrated. I think I’m working more hours than he is. That’s really why I think he’s a slacker, I’m jealous. And you know, CrisMarie, using her own example that she gave you. You know, I’m upset because I spent hours on this, and Susan just seems to be coming up with more and more ideas when I’ve already put the PowerPoint together.

CrisMarie: That’s her creative nature and I wanna actually…I’m the one that has to implement so I get really upset.

Susan: Or “He’s a jerk, I’m pissed.” Where is that coming from? Why am I so upset? And this is very much like the person with the symptoms. Turn it in what is going on? What aren’t you saying?

CrisMarie: Because if we stay focused outside, we really have very little control. I mean, we’re all about having crucial conversations and saying what you need to say. But also finding out really what’s the driver inside of you, because that’s what’s creating a lot of your suffering.

So this Turn 180 tool, if you’re coaching somebody, it’s really asking them, what’s your judgment about the other person starting from there because that’s usually what we’re focused on. We’re observing, looking at it outside of us.

Susan: And really giving that person permission to run the gamut to wherever to let those judgments out.

CrisMarie: Because that’s actually a healthy part of knowing what’s happening inside is looking at those judgments. And then asking some probing questions like why is that a problem for you? Or how does that impact you? Or what do you make it mean? All of those you’re actually helping the person get to how they’re interpreting the situation on the inside of themselves. And then eventually, you’ll help to get them to break it down to what are you thinking? What are you feeling? What are you wanting? Because a lot of times when we’re focused out there, we’re not really clear, really, how is this impacting me? And what is it that I want? And how do I really feel?

Susan: And it can be as simple sometimes as asking somebody at this point is it true? Do you know it to be true? Because as soon as they can begin to get just a little twist on their thinking, so it’s not so anchored in to be the truth, they actually can open up to a lot more resources, because then they can begin to imagine a different story, a different possibility.

CrisMarie: Maybe he’s not a jerk. Maybe Susan is more than just a creative source. So helping a leader, you know, do this internal work is always to make them more effective on the outside. And so you wanna turn 360 and take it back to your team.

Susan: So we wanna go back just quickly to our original model the path of collective creativity on teams. Because we’ve been talking about how to help a leader get more embodied to bring more of their resources to whatever situation they’re trying to solve, to expand and include. And now you know, they’re looking at how are they participating in it. And now the task of taking it back really boils down to what we think of as the two key ingredients for developing influence.

CrisMarie: And so it’s the we part of the equation. And so you expand and include… Sorry, I was slow on the slides there. Turn 180 and then you’re gonna get to influencing the people around you. And the path to influence is the two magic ingredients of vulnerability and curiosity. And we talked a lot about this in our TED talk, and also in our last talk that we did last year. But one simple thing is just to track how vulnerable am I willing to be? Am I hidden and not willing to reveal anything? Or am I willing to be real and say what’s happening for me? I don’t know if you have an example for this one.

Susan: Often this is really a key measure for me when I’m in a situation where I can if I’m willing to turn 180 and look at what am I not saying? What am I hiding? What is going on that I am not willing to bring to the surface? And I do my own self-check somewhere between plus 10 and minus 10. It makes a significant difference. I’ve been in board meetings, I’ve been working with clients where I’ve realized, oh, my lack of vulnerability is actually making this coaching session much more difficult. And if I can at least own it, and find a way to bring some of that in, that is actually quite helpful.

CrisMarie: We keep kidding about our process here in developing even this talk, but one of the things that I had to say is, wow, I feel like I’m doing all the work here, Susan. That was…you can say that that was blaming and it was starting out that way. But it was a way for me to start the conversation and then it got a lot…We cleaned it up and I could see what my part was in that. That I am a perfectionist. The other axis is curiosity. Curiosity is again a scale, am I closed and in that reactive state or actually am I open and responsive and being willing to be influenced?

Susan: Now the critical piece when I’m measuring myself or asking someone else to measure themselves in this one, is to really make it okay to be reactive. And again, we go back to those embodiment tools, can you recognize where the reactivity is and then work with it? Because if you aren’t in a place of being curious, the work starts with you. Go back to how can I expand my container and that you know, is critical for this curiosity piece.

CrisMarie: And when you put these two together that’s when…you know we link it to these opt-out styles or the great outbox. That what we’re talking about on this talk is how to be the influencer. The more real you can be, especially when you’ve done your own inner work and the more open to influence you can be from other people, you have so much more ability to influence people listen to you, they believe you, they trust you. And they’re willing to engage. It’s really powerful and paradoxical. The fact that I’m willing to be influenced actually makes me more influential with other people.

Susan: So this is kind of the whole kit and caboodle where you have Joe, he’s got an option he could react or respond. And the idea is we wanna support the leader moving from reacting to responding, but with the full recognition that they’re going to react. And when they do go to reaction, they have a choice. They could try to get rid of it, block it off, segment it out, or they could begin to use that energy and bring it back into expand and include and turn 180 and work with it.

CrisMarie: And just we wanna emphasize it’s not just a mental process. I think that’s where we get a lot of frustration in our business coaching because we’re trying to solve it mentally. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just not the whole equation that’s gonna help the change shtick. You really have to we believe use the body and access the other resources, emotions, and spiritual, and body to have a whole person. And then we think you’re gonna be much more influential. You’ll feel more fulfilled because there’s more of you showing up. You’re not segmenting yourself for work. So I think that’s the end, yes, of our talk.

Jen, I know we’re gonna have questions just in case people wanna know about us, you can go… We do coaching, team off-sites, speaking and training. And you can certainly contact us at thrive@thriving.com. That’s my cell phone number there. And you can look us up at thriving.com. If you want more information about the work we do. And…

Susan: We’ll check-in and see if there have been any questions.

CrisMarie: Yes.

Susan: You know, if not, we can always cover other things.

Jennifer: I’m sure you can. So the question that we’ve had so far and do feel free to submit questions, we’re gonna have a little bit of time here at the end for questions. The question about handouts, which is not a question necessarily for you to answer. I will share with you all that we are recording this morning’s training, the live training, and we’ll be sending you a link in an email with a link to the recording as well as a link to the handout. So you will have access to those handouts. And you can certainly feel free to share this link and this training with other people in your organization.

So I have a question about what do you do with the leader who’s not willing to turn 180? I mean, is there a practical tool that…now this will be for a person on this call, who maybe is an HR leader who’s working with another leader in the business. And this is a person who’s not looking at their own contribution. Is there a way that you can encourage somebody else to be willing to look at their own contribution?

CrisMarie: Well, one tool that if somebody is not willing to, you know, go there. There’s a tool called the judge your neighbor worksheet. It’s all about actually that person putting their judgments out on a piece of paper about somebody. And then I actually…so I let them, you know, have at it. And I then say, well, just try on reading that same thing back but putting yourself in their shoes. And it’s kind of…So it’s not like they’re not starting out thinking they’re gonna do that. But when they do it, they’re like, it’s often eye-opening. Like, I think she wants to run the place and it’s like, oh, maybe I wanna run the place, you know. But it’s not that could sound like oh, I’m trying to trick them. It’s just more a way, a process of getting them to take that step and consider that they may be part of the situation. That’s one tool.

Susan: And often frankly I think of in corporate situations, or HR situations a lot of times that’s I think why feedback needs to come in first so that a leader can get especially someone who’s really stuck there and helping them process through. I get that you don’t see this as you being part of the problem. However, this data is showing you something different. Are you willing to consider, you know.

CrisMarie: We built leadership development programs for several companies. And the first thing we would do is…for those leaders coming in is have them do a 360. And a pretty intensive 360 where there’s a, you know, quantitative version, but there’s also comments. And that’s to actually kind of provide that sense of a wake-up call like you are not without impact here. It’s not just about other people, you are having an impact and that is often an opening to have them start to look at what their part in the situation.

Susan: And I was thinking another situation that I got brought into a long time ago was to work with this NASA brilliant engineer way beyond anything I could…They wanted me to convince him that he was arrogant. I guess that was [inaudible 00:50:14]. And I was very stymied by the challenge. But I was like, you know. But the thing that was helpful for me was I said, you know, there’s no reason for this guy to really listen to me. So does he work with anyone else? Come to find out he did on a regular basis. And this guy was an older gentleman, also, just as brilliant. You know, so what I did was I actually said, you know, I actually wanna work with both of them, because I actually think the feedback is gonna be more powerful when it comes from his peer.

And that’s often been you know, some of the work that I’ve done is either to say, you know, I’ll coach this person, but I’d like to coach them with one of their peers or somehow bring in that dialogue. Because they may not, they may think she’s just responsible for the soft stuff and whatever else. But if I can actually get team members to be willing to say, here’s where I think they’re challenged. Because what ended up happening in that scenario was the guy…you know, the real work was actually convincing the guy that was the more older senior guy that it would be valuable to give his teammate the feedback.

And when he did, it was an amazing session when they got together. And for the first time, this guy heard the impact that he was not only having on people in the room but on his peers. And his peer said, “This is really hard for me to say because you’re brilliant, but yeah, you do, the money stops coming in as soon as you talk, because you basically tell everybody, they’re stupid, you know.”

CrisMarie: Well, when they’re giving a presentation the guy would actually…somebody would be asking you a question and he’d somehow, not necessarily directly but think, he’d transmit that’s a dumb question. And so the person, of course, giving money wouldn’t wanna give money because they thought they were stupid. And so that’s what the older gentleman had to reflect back. And Susan wasn’t in those sessions. So to develop a container where peers are willing to come forward and share in some way, and we always like it when it’s direct, face to face, eyeball to eyeball. And if you can’t create that, that would be the 360 piece.

Jenifer: I love to hear your quote about it. It’s not really possible that you’re not contributing to this because you are part of the system. I think that gets forgotten sometimes. There has been so much progress and so much work around things like Crucial Conversations. But I think oftentimes, what’s left out is that you as the person initiating that conversation, you are part of the system too, it’s not just your willingness to speak truth to somebody, it’s your willingness to look reflexively at your own contribution.

CrisMarie: Exactly. That’s really…

Susan: And I think you know, what you’re describing on the outside of a leader’s willingness to look at what’s going on, it’s the same thing often we deal with with a leader internally. Helping them realize that usually that desire to resist looking at something comes from their own compartmentalization. The way they…you know, they don’t wanna feel, or they don’t wanna feel vulnerable, or they don’t wanna feel exposed.

CrisMarie: Or look stupid.

Susan: Or look stupid or acknowledge something else that’s going on. And it’s so many times when a leader just starts to do that piece and realize how much they’re even clamping it down themselves. That’s really when that next piece comes to fruition. They’re more willing.

CrisMarie: Because otherwise, they get really… And this is what was happening for me when I was at Arthur Andersen. I was really brittle. I couldn’t take too much failure like I didn’t know how to fail. I didn’t know how to…you know, I had to be perfect to be okay. And that’s I think often what we breed in business, it’s only okay if you’re a superstar, or you know, superhero. And really, if you want longevity in the business, you need to actually learn to be human while, sure, I’m an Olympic athlete, I wanna succeed. It’s not one or the other, it’s both.

Susan: Not just longevity, but actual fulfillment in the work you’re doing to bring more of you to it. And influence because you know, people are often influenced when somebody is willing to be vulnerable and acknowledge what’s actually going on.

Jenifer: Can you say a little bit more about that? You touched on that briefly about influence, that you are more influential when you demonstrate that you are able to be influenced? I think I heard you say that. Did I understand that correctly?

CrisMarie: You did. When you’re willing to be vulnerable meaning saying what’s true for you, but also being willing to be influenced by somebody else. Do you have an example?

Susan: Well, I mean, we were just in a conversation with someone and they were talking about how this relates to the horse…it wasn’t actually a horse situation. This person…it was at work.

CrisMarie: On the radio show.

Susan: On the radio show. We were talking about and it was a situation where this guy was a big leader in the military, had done a lot of work. And he wanted to bring people that were coming back home to this particular…to deal more vulnerably and talk about, you know, what was really going on for them. And he was the one who started off by saying, “This is what it’s been like for me. I’ve had to deal with my own tendency when I come home to…I’ve been suicidal, I’ve been angry.” He was incredibly vulnerable with his people.

And this woman was saying she was watching him and she just saw all of the people who had…these guys that had shown up for this began to drop in and listen because he was being so vulnerable. And he said, “For the longest time, I never acknowledged that any of this was going on.” And that’s how come you know, I want you to have a different experience than I did. So here was this incredibly powerful person using his own…

CrisMarie: Vulnerability.

Susan: Vulnerability.

CrisMarie: And the curiosity piece. So this is where I’m willing to be influenced by somebody else. Like think about yourself when you are kind of head…you know, you’re in a power struggle, let’s say with Greg and anybody who’s on the call when you’re stuck. It’s really powerful when somebody actually takes in your information.

This comes up with Susan and I and says, so it sounds like what you’re saying is, and they take it in and they really consider it. I actually gained like, “Oh, I’m being heard.” I feel more connected. I’m more willing. I’m a person with Susan. And so I’m more loyal, she’s taking in my input. So there’s a whole relationship development that happens. And she becomes more influential with me going forward because she’s willing to listen and take in my input. Does that make sense, Jen?

Jenifer: It makes perfect sense. That’s fantastic. And we do have a question that’s come up and it’s perfect timing for the question. Somebody was asking about continuing education credits. And the good news is that yes, we do have continuing education credits available.

This program has been pre-approved for recertification credits through HRCI, as well as maybe one more slide to decipher yes, so SHRM. So both SHRM and HRCI credit. This information will be in the slides and the handouts that we email to you later. So this is something that we offer for all of our “HR Hotspot” programs as recertification credits.

And let’s talk about what’s coming up next. Next month, we are bringing back another repeat speaker. We’ve been fortunate to have some great speakers and great recommendations of speakers. And our speaker next month had come to us from a recommendation from several of you who heard her speak at a conference. And she’s a fantastic presenter. She’s an attorney who is extremely enjoyable to listen to, which is my favorite combination of skills, smart and enjoyable to listen to.

And she’s going to talk about “Hiring Essentials: Recruiting Secrets and Strategies for Building Winning Teams.” Why is an attorney talking to us about recruiting secrets and strategies? Well, she’s gonna talk about the problems that show up in the workplace. And what you can do as the person who is making hiring decisions and selection decisions for your organizations to be more proactive in spotting behaviors and warning signs of employees that may be problems in your workplace. And so it’s gonna be an attorney’s perspective on recruiting and selection. I think it’s gonna be very, very interesting.

And this is coming up on September 16th, same time, 10 to 11 a.m. Pacific. And we also do have credit available for that. You can go ahead and sign up today at that link at terrastaffinggroup.com. And again, we’ll be sending the link to the recording out to you later today.

I appreciate all of you being here today. And I absolutely appreciate and I’m so grateful to CrisMarie and Susan for another great presentation. Helping us grow our containers and helping us help the leaders in our organizations to grow their containers, all incredibly relevant as we sign off and put all this into practice. So thank you again, both of you for another great presentation. And we will look forward to seeing all of you hopefully back next month for our next edition of “HR Hotspot.” Make it a great day, everybody.

Susan: Thanks, Jen.

CrisMarie: Thanks.

CrisMarie Campbell and Susan Clarke

Thrive!