October 2, 2009

To address the issue of work stress, we started right away with questions from the audience:

Q: “I’m awake all night thinking about everything that happened during the day, what I have to do tomorrow, and what bills I have to pay. How do I get some sleep?!”

A: “Start right away with a 45-minute debriefing session, each night. Take the time to talk it all out. Then you’ll be able to sleep better.”

Q: “I have a busy day and I need to focus. But my staff will call me about things they already know how to handle. This disturbs my train of thought; it’s hard to get back and track. What do I do?”

A: “To reduce these interferences give your most anxious staff members five minutes of pure, unadulterated concentration every day. Teach them to think about their next day, and what they want to bring up at the next, intensive five-minute meeting. Help them get ‘stimulus control’ over their interrupting behavior.”

Q: “Some things I have to do as a supervisor makes people hate me. I don’t want to be hated! It upsets me. How do I handle it?”

A: “Set up ‘mini-therapy’ sessions with a trusted friend. Have all your thoughts and feelings about your work environment. And I mean all! Find a private place for this meeting. And remember, a mental murder a day keeps the doctor away. It’s best to talk further with me so I can help you make the process healthful.”

Q: “I find I’m easily distracted, and while I’m doing one thing, I’m turning my attention to a bunch of other things. How do I stop that?”

A: “You don’t. You were built to multitask, to pick up on everything around you. It’s your legacy from millions of years of evolution. Go with it. Use it to help you succeed. Multitasking does reduce the effectiveness on any one task, but that can be worked on.”

The Fight-Flight-Fright reflex is behind these solutions. It also addresses psychosomatic disorders that are part and parcel of modern life:

• How do I live a heart-healthy life?

• What contributes to my stomachaches and GI problems?

• Why do I get so itchy? What makes my dermatitis and eczema flare up?

• I feel anxious a lot. I find work nerve-wracking. Why?

• I stiffen up at interviews or confrontations and I don’t do my best. Why?

Hans Selye interviewed our fighting forces during and after WWII and he linked their stress, resistance and exhaustion with the Fight-Flight-Fright reflex. The eighteen skills listed on our website are all anti-stress solutions. They increase flow towards a desired goal and result, and they address the Fight-Flight-Fright reflex. We’ll help you master them.

For a fuller explanation of our biological reaction in the face of danger, go to our Power Point Presentation: Antistress: Making Your Biology Work for You

Sigmund Freud described it as standing behind a man-sized spaghetti strainer, so that we couldn’t really see or act or operate in a wide-open way. The opportunities for change were as small as the holes in the strainer. The steel of that kitchen aid held sway over the holes. We call that “being stuck.”

So how does anybody change ingrained patterns? You’re going to like this answer, because it will strike you as true at the same time that it makes no sense. It’s so outside the box that even psychology has had a hard time accepting it. In fact, it’s Noetic and in its dimensions goes far beyond psychology:

1. Find ways to give the guy in the canal a shared experience. Find a way to “be there” with him.

2. Help him find the “shortest path” for his “electricity.”

3. Admire his schema, appreciate it, and understand it.

4. Respect the protective power of a large, man-sized spaghetti strainer. When things hit the fan, you’re a goner. But when they hit the strainer, you survive even though you end up with a bunch of little pockmarks all over your body.

Freud hated the spaghetti strainer. He also referred to it as a “stone wall,” and was fond of saying that his job was to “smash the stone wall of resistance.” He didn’t do very well. His record of effectiveness was mixed at best. Hyman Spotnitz taught that you join the person behind his stone wall. And if he got the right feeling, he’d stick his head out for a peek.

This is sophisticated stuff. But we at Noetic can describe it in a shorthand you’ll understand: “Find out how to make a ‘We’ with the other person.” What’s in it for you? You wouldn’t have read this far if you didn’t have a valued person in mind. You need him, you need all of him, and this is how you go about bringing into an adaptive mode.

And, of course, it might be you. You might need some company in that canal. You might need someone to clear the way for your electricity. You may need someone to recognize the worth of your schemas, or stand with you behind the wall. The result is that the canal flattens out, your electricity is able to reach into more places, your schema relaxes its borders and expands, the holes in your spaghetti strainer open up, and the stone wall turns out to be an illusion. Read the chapter about the stone wall in “Conversations With A Retired Businessman,” a short book on my website.

How do you change? You start by having a shared experience in Noetic Roundtable Meetings.

Read on.

What do MRSA’s have to do with business? Simple. Any hospital on Long Island could distinguish itself by posting a 20% or less infection rate. And every hospital has the raw materials for a solution. This is a “human” problem. Certain behaviors have to be followed, every time, and they all concern a heightened awareness to a threat no one can see, but everyone has to believe is there. It’s a matter of cleaning your equipment, watching that nothing extraneous is introduced into the surgical arena, people washing their hands thirty seconds or more in a prescribed fashion, people changing gloves when they approach a new patient, and keeping dirty laundry away from clean laundry.

So what would it take to align human nature with business goals? What kind of commitment would the hospitals have to make to be able to bring us good news within the year? As Fred Strauss tells us repeatedly, it’s “Practice, practice and more practice.” The behaviors of success would have to be identified and clarified in conversations with everyone in the building. Then they would have to be monitored. Any fudging would be discovered quickly, as the patient got an infection. The process would be self-correcting in that regard. The hospital’s business goals would have to find articulation in the daily process on the floors.

It’s not easy, but it’s do-able. And it’s entirely within the grasp of any hospital on Long Island. As long as the organization can lick the problem of human nature. Because people are not keeping the surgical arena clean. They are not changing gloves. They are not washing their hands. Not with the commitment that’s needed.

I personally know each and every one of you who receives this e-newsletter. This is important to you and your family. Betsy McCaughey, former Lt. Governor of New York chairs R.I.D. at www.hospitalinfections.org and you ought to log on and be part of this. And the broader question is the pursuit of goals in the companies where you consult. Is human nature interfering? Is the company staffed by people with the best of intentions, who drop the ball when it comes to execution?

In addition to your consulting duties, you may need to be conducting groups of the sort I suggested for the hospitals. You ought to be moderating Noetic Roundtable Discussions in addition to your sales, marketing, IT, legal or other services. Come by and observe our process. Learn it. Do it where you consult. Because I believe this gap between goals and reality will continue to remain large, unless the issue of human nature is dealt with in some advanced fashion. In the meantime, try to stay healthy. Until we get some data from the hospitals. Until they begin a competition to see who’ll deliver the best health care with the least MRSA infections.

I don’t remember too many staff members referring to our organizations as “family.” But I knew most of my people very well, and they knew each other even better. Face it. We spend more time with fellow employees than we do with our spouses and children. This became clear yet again in the new Star Trek movie.

A bunch of kids, ages seventeen to twenty-five, take the U.S.S. Enterprise out on a rescue mission. Youngsters are in charge of the most advanced piece of technology ever conceived on the planet: a starship. Along the way, Kirk jumps off a mile-high platform to save Sulu, Uhura and Spock carry on a love affair, Bones the Doctor is in his chronically dyspeptic state and complains bitterly to anyone who’ll listen, Chekhov the Helmsman saves lots of people-as does Scottie the Engineer- and various people punch and strangle Kirk. At one point Spock is driven to administer the Vulcan Death Grip on the aspiring Captain. They save the planet and at the end if they’re not a family, then what do we call them?

We at the Noetic Board know exactly what they are, and what they’ve become. It was the dream of Gene Roddenberry, who populated the ship’s Bridge with a Yankee, a Southerner, a Scot, a Vulcan, an African, an Asian and a Russian, blue guys, green guys, fish people and Klingons. The individuals go together to make a powerful One. It’s a more powerful One because of its diversity. Represented on the Bridge are a dozen different “takes” on the universe, unique perspectives shaped by genes, early environment and subsequent experience. Together, they’re unbeatable.

You call this Noetic. It’s not my team, my family, or my company that will rise above all others. It’s My Noetic. Naomi and I have a Noetic in our home. As a Noetic, we’ve seen James finish an Honors College and go on to law school, David press on to his last year in that Honors College in philosophy, Michael place third in the Nation in Science on two competitions, and Isabella show a precocity that suggests the same arc.

Noetic Is As Noetic Does

And what do we have in common? All six of us serve, and at the drop of a hat are ready to lead. There is no discontinuity, no hesitation. We don’t have to pull anything up from deep recesses in an unexplored psyche. It’s all there, made available by the way we interact. Even as a 9th grader, Mike could be seen quietly observing the work of fellow students and giving them positive feedback on their direction. He let them know he was with them, and that he was there for them. He did it effortlessly and without forethought. He shifted from immersion in rocks, fossils, ecology, and experimental design to social facilitation without a break in consciousness. That’s Noetic.

It’s no error our oldest son’s name is James. When I asked Naomi if it was all right, I had James Tiberius Kirk in mind, and James fulfilled his promise, as Editor of Stony Brook’s Statesman, IT man for dozens of the computers on campus, trumpet on the Philharmonic, and A student. And he’s just picking up steam. Why James T. Kirk? Because he brings the brainy Spock and emotional Bones together. He’s the center. He has in him a reflection of everyone on his Bridge. He’s not afraid of differences-he intrigued by them, attracted to them and more than occasionally infatuated with them.

What’s Noetic? I regularly get my clock cleaned by these children. That’s what Noetic is. They beat me in Latin, Calculus, they beat me in scholarship, they beat me in Science, they beat me in Psychology, they beat me in the Arts and Music, and they beat me in skill. I love it! Keep cleaning my clock! I invite you who consult to companies to come and get the juice. Show your clients that a company is not a family perhaps, but it’s a Noetic, ready to be realized. Show your companies how to do some clock-cleaning.

The Long Island Users Group met at the Melville Marriott on May 20 and got to discuss the power of group behavior. We got rid of an old stereotype. Psychology is not about being warm and fuzzy. It’s about everything. Invited in the right way to express yourself, all your abilities have a chance to heighten. And that means intellect, creativity, moving out of your comfort zone, relaxing in your hardened ways of handling problems, and working with zest and endurance.

In one of the seminars, the audience concluded that a well-moderated group was like a family, and indeed the company was a family, too. One fellow responded that his boss did not consider the company a family. The boss told his staff that he already had a family. The people were there to work, to do what was asked of them, and for that they got paid. There was agreement that a good number of the companies we’ve worked for operate in that fashion. That seemed to lessen the energy in the audience.

I asked the fellow what company he worked for, and who his competitor was. Because if that’s how his boss ran the company, in one year we could clean his clock. Some good amount of glee ensued, because we all know it’s true. The fellow was smart enough not to reveal either his company, or its arch competitor. What the boss said was not true. The company is a family, and the boss has two families. And he might be treating the family at home the way he treats the family at work.

Again, we’re not talking about warm fuzzies. We’re talking about developing a crack team that can take on the competition, a team that can clean the competition’s clock. We have a questionnaire for your company. It will not only tell you how you’re doing, but will also point to the things that a crack team does to stay on top. Do not send it back to us. We’ve read a few dozen in the last week, and the situation is explosive. There were a lot of 1’s and 2’s, very few 6’s and 7’s.

Who said squandering I.Q. was a good company practice?

As you may have heard us say on National Public Radio Thursday the 21st of May and Friday the 22nd, Commerce is energy. We were interviewed at the HIA Trade Show, and NPR shared our comments with its listeners. These are times that require more energy, even though the natural human response is to pull inward. We demonstrated this for the Trade Show visitors and it emerged as one of the primary issues for business. Let’s be clear here.

Dead people don’t buy and they don’t sell. The energy’s gone out of them. The spirit has vacated the body. The interest is no longer there. Death has that effect on commerce. After that, depression takes a close second. You don’t have to be a scientist to notice how the body slows down, the speech becomes more deliberate, there are more pauses between words, the looks are less focused and more languorous, and attention is fleeting. There’s an energy shutdown.

But let’s turn the microscope around. Rather than concentrate on “depression,” which carries so much clinical weight and cultural baggage, let’s talk about plain energy, and how to release more of it. We asked our visitors, “Got Noetic?” They weren’t sure, and they asked us what it was. In telling them, we shared the secret of plentiful, ongoing commercial energy:

Noetic is belonging to a group that heightens your intellectual grasp, because we know that group I.Q. trumps individual I.Q. It’s being in a group that expands your personality, because we know that in a well-moderated group, people are infectious and “give each other” new ways to operate. It’s being in a group that arouses you and excites you, so you hit the ground running. It’s a group that’s moderated to invite new ideas and what Murray Kleiner calls “sudden awareness.” It’s a group that controls for any negativity, sabotage and criticism.

Jim Ryan, an accomplished writer and author of “Simple Happiness” was featuring his book close by our table. We joined him and bought copies, which he autographed. We stopped people and told them what those pages held. We quoted Jim. We encouraged people to take a look at this supreme gift Jim was offering, for a mere twelve dollars and fifty cents. One person seemed to like Jim very much and smiled a lot, so I asked her about buying the book. She looked at me like I had just crossed a double yellow line.

I persisted. She couldn’t bring herself to open her purse. Her hand was frozen. She wished him well but wasn’t about to spring for twelve and a half bucks. Job’s Helper. No matter. We blocked up the traffic, and people stopped to check out this tall, handsome man with the great personality. You could see how the energy equation changed. Jim, who was certainly masterful to begin with, got out from behind his table and communed with the passersby. People got to see how tall he was, how imposing a character. A home-grown author! That’s Noetic. You can find Jim at info@jimryantalks.com

It’s time to change the equation. It’s time to come at old problems in a new way. This was the theme of our brilliant Breakfast speaker, Brian Parsley. There’s dead, there’s half-dead, and there’s low energy. And then there’s perseveration. Brian addressed that: continuing to do the right thing in the wrong circumstances. It’s a new ballgame, and you need your group’s energy at its height to be aware of the signs that will lead you to new strategies. Brian is one of America’s premier speakers, and he laid out a very clear path to success. Look him up at weskill.com

We are aware of the symphony of responses to the people we meet, and we “hold” them all comfortably:

“Here comes somebody who I feel is not anything like me–he’s an Other.”

AND

“Here comes somebody who on the surface doesn’t look like me at all. But I’m going to try to find commonalities. That feeds my professional spirit.”

AND

“I’m feeling connected to this person already. I’m curious. I want to know more about him. I want the connection to flourish.”

AND

“Here comes a person that I care about. I have a proprietary feeling about his welfare. I experience him as part of my family.”

AND

“Aha. There go I” That person is me. While I listen and observe from the outside, I can also be open to information from the inside.”

AND

“The eight of us at Noetic will give this person the gift of the Noetic Board. He will have access to eight people who see the world from eight singular vantage points, and bring those experiences together to respond to the whole person who is reaching out for help. That person will be able to internalize us, and carry us around in his head. He will be able to have the Noetic Board with him all the time.”

We’re going to look into the eyes of a few thousand people on Thursday, we’re going to shake their hand, we’re going to find out what they’re looking for, and we’re going to encounter them with the six reactions, together, at once. For us, the visitor is the center of the universe, and we’re able to feel that way because we understand it’s a Noetic Universe. We’re with the visitor, in the center of the universe.

This is the source of our moderating skills, our facilitating skills, our problem-solving skills and the people that work with us will get quick access to all of these because of the way we’ve set up the process. “Got Noetic?” See you Thursday at the HIA Trade Show.

At the moment of meeting, a solution flashed in my mind. It was in response to the plaintive look of the large animal: To be so commanding a presence and to seem so cowed and overwhelmed! She did not wag her tail, but just looked right into my eyes, searching for something. I walked over to the couch, sat down and motioned to her. It was the barest move of my finger. As she approached me I thought–but did not say aloud–”Everything’s going to be all right.”

She sat next to me so that her body rested against my legs. I maintained a calm and soothing voice as I spoke to the family. They were incredulous. For that matter, so was I. There was no plan that I could have identified, but as I observed the peace with which the dog communed, it came to me that my stability brought about her relief. I acted as an Alpha dog, and this allowed her to find her place and regain her comfort. The dog thereafter enjoyed years of solace.

Consulting has two strong and equal dimensions to it. The first is knowledge. The consultant has trained in his or her area and knows all the theories and practices. These can be described as “top-down” models that are good at capturing the reality of the field. The second is openness. The consultant has his models at the ready, but does not allow them to block his next experience. This is called a “bottom-up” approach to the world. Both merge to give the consultant the experience that individuals and companies need.

Letting preconceptions block problem-solving is a terrific problem. They are like a mote in the eye. Confronting a new situation with no way to make heads or tails of it leads to a chaotic experience. Consulting is the effective merging of knowledge and openness, and there is a good reason for this: the next individual we meet and the next company we visit are unique enough that we start with what we know, but we let them teach us who they are. For the book about them has not been written yet. We will write it with them, together.

Make sure to visit us at the:

HIA Trade Show on May 21, at the Suffolk Community College campus in Brentwood.

You can’t miss us. Find the sign that says, “Got Noetic?”

I did the unspeakable, as a young Principal of twenty-seven. I called school meetings in the gym, with children who had every kind of learning disability. Some of them had a history of violence. The Superintendent had a conniption. He thought we’d need the National Guard. But I met with my team, the faculty, the parents, and all the staff that served in the school. We plotted it out, we prepared the kids, and then we went ahead and did it.
At our first meeting there was a hush. Students from ages five to twenty-one, who were used to being patrolled, controlled, watched and separated to avoid groupings, were now all together. I told the youngsters that we adults had been talking, and that we were prepared to follow the year’s curriculum as usual. But we would also listen to any ideas they might have about the school program. We could make room for changes. The room fell dead silent. Of the hundreds and hundreds of youngsters there, no one had a thing to say. They were dumbstruck by my offer. I waited. Nothing happened. I looked at them, and they looked at me.

Then a little first-grader called out. In a squeaky, almost inaudible voice, he asked if we could have a farm on school grounds. All eyes turned to him. I asked him what kind of animals he’d like to bring to the school. He mentioned a lamb, a goat, a turkey, maybe a pig or two, animals he’d only seen on television. I asked the group what else they’d like to see on a school farm. A low buzz began in the back of the gym. People called out the names of other animals, as well as fruits and vegetables they’d like to grow.

We spent a week on this issue, and it seemed to capture everyone’s imagination. This County program got the students from regular school who were too disruptive to teach. But they seemed quite engaged in this process. Before the first quarter was out, we had a flourishing farm as well as four other innovations. Misbehavior dropped significantly. No one wanted to miss school. We did farm math, farm science, farm English and farm Social Studies. As a team, the adults did some innovating, as well. We set up programs between our school and regular school, and the continuum made it easier to mainstream the students.

The State Education Department came down to see how we accomplished the impossible. We showed them, and then we taught it to others. What does it boil down to?

• Everyone gets valued for his contributions, and that goes for the littlest guy.
• Teams are smarter than individuals. Group I.Q. always trumps individual I.Q.
• The genius of the staff is lined up, through exploration and discussion, with the mission of the organization.
• An attitude of research is taken. Let’s see what it costs, in terms of manpower and pulling us away from habits we’ve had for years. And if we can tolerate the cost, let’s give it a try.
• Let’s have people in the organization who are competitive and would actually like to break barriers, get medals, beat the competition and shine.

Where did this come from? I had read Douglas McGregor’s landmark business book, “The Human Side of Enterprise” and followed Theory Y. Theory Y predicted that people at work are a lot smarter, more motivated and more pleased with success than we give them credit for. It was a cure for Theory X, which predicted that people were lazy, avoided work at all costs, that they needed to be cajoled, punished and controlled to get any work out of them.

I was also a long-term altar boy at my local church and I had a Psychology degree. I put them all together. Respect others, respect their spirit, see them in a transcendent manner, work with them on their manifest and latent skills, and get them involved in the organization. We call that position Noetic. Got Noetic? Come visit us at the Trade Show on May 21st. It’s time for a conversation, and we’d love to have it with you.

You cannot beat such an operation. It has no peer. So how is this accomplished? You turn the habits listed here into a checklist, which you carry with you daily. You identify the steps toward each goal. You start a Noetic Roundtable Process to make sure it will succeed.

Come visit us at the HIA Trade Show, May 21st, 8 to 4 at Suffolk Community College, Brentwood Campus. You’ll see our banner prominently displayed:

“Got Noetic?”

We’ll get the conversation going. You’ll find out how to thrive and prosper in the face of pressure, competition and stress.