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coaching
Working with
Individuals
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Turning Ideas into Actions into Results
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Stories
from NASA
Stories from
our Files
Expanding
the Envelope of Language
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Discover how we can facilitate your goals.
Contact us at: Coaching@w-y-t.com
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Alice - The Long
Shot Comes in First
Alice
was assessed as
requiring a long
development process for her leadership skills when she was chosen for
the NASA Systems Engineering Training Program. A engineer in her
mid-30s she was perceived as indecisive, not focused, not solid yet she
definitely had the technical strengths necessary to be a NASA systems
engineer.
I noticed in one of the
first sessions that she was doodling while speaking. Since this
was a recurring behavior I decided to use it as an opportunity for
learning. Note: the non-verbal dimension includes much more than
the “physical.” It extends to the cognitive arena. Visual
thinking like movement thinking is non-verbal. Remember the SAT exam,
it had two sections: verbal and math --- a non-verbal mode of
cognition.
Her doodle began as a square and rapidly
became an expanding field of squares partially overlaying
squares. Note: In the history of symbols, squares correspond to
concreteness, containment, details, and/or analytical logic.
Beginning with a single detail, she saw
more and more details and ways to examine them --- an excellent
perspective for a systems engineer. However, the details and
choices kept expanding. We approached her doodle as an analogue
of what appeared behaviorally as indecisiveness.
Her first
practice was to draw one square on top of another, thereby containing
her expansive thinking to a single focus. She used this during
meetings and began to report greater control over her indecisive – too
many choices – tendency.
Another project was how to balance her personal relational orientation
with the professional requirements for being a decisive thinker.
She was taught a pair of simple body-based meditations that shifted her
center of gravity in two distinct ways. One encouraged her
natural relational style. The other brought forth her less used
decisive-ness, necessary for meeting head-to-head in an “it’s just
business attitude.”
After purposefully shifting
back and forth between the practices, she
was able to recognize the muscular signature of her normal state.
Now, she could more clearly ascertain when it was appropriate to shift
to a less emotional orientation. She applied this in large group
meetings, one-on-one conversations, and in preparation for meetings.
The next project was how to purposefully (yet authentically) project an
authoritative, no nonsense, and powerfully solid presence. The
goal was to walk into a meeting and without saying a word become the
gravitational center of the groups attention.
She was given a practice based on the
intrinsic connection between stance, attitudinal readiness, strategic
options, and perceived presence. Using the language of strategy
offered by Miyamoto Musashi in A
Book of Five Rings, she wanted to
access the Ring of Ground.
Anyone who holds this state with their
muscles as well as their “minds” shows up as decisive, independent,
authoritative, and powerfully effective. This is especially true
in the United States. In some parts of the world, a very
different set of qualities demonstrates power.
The proof ... she applied for a
senior systems engineering
position at NASA/Goddard – one that she “knew” she was not ready for
yet, both from the perspective of experience and technical
know-how. As an important and intriguing aside, 95% of the
questions she was asked by the interviewing panel were about her
leadership skills, not her technical understanding.
She was
awarded the position, based primarily on how she presented herself
during the interview and how she handled the difficult leadership
questions posed by the panel. A technical tutor was chosen to
help her catch up on the “much easier to acquire” engineering
knowledge.
In a follow up conversation, one of the panel members spoke of how
impressed he was at her calm and solid presence, especially given his
memory of her just a year ago. She reports that under the verbal
surface, she was paying attention to keeping her feet on the ground,
her hands solid and strong, her breath in her belly, and sitting
slightly forward in the chair. When her focus wavered she
visualized drawing a square.
Since these kinds of awareness and internal effort were non-verbal,
they did not distract her ability to listen clearly to the words.
In addition, because she had practiced these subtle actions in less
charged situations, she came across as naturally and authentically
solid, dependable, and able to handle the conflicts and stresses of the
new position.
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Evelyn - The Posture of Being Taken
More Seriously
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Evelyn
is a senior systems engineer.
She is representative of a surprising large number of women engineers
who have a clear and powerful intellect and still have maintained their
strong feeling nature.
The challenge, of course, is how to balance the two. She asked
for assistance in “being taken more seriously” in meetings, especially
with male (thinking type) engineers and administrators. She was
tired of working so hard to prove herself when her record proves the
point.
In the context of one of the typology systems used at NASA (4-D
Leadership), she is oriented towards “relationship” and
“connection”. This often shows itself by the individual
over-emphasizing the need to build bridges of empathy even when (and
especially when) the other people involved are task oriented (and often
connection-phobic). This automatic behavior “weakened” her in
their eyes – requiring her to work extra hard to demonstrate her skill
and value.
Taking into account the following two factors, we devised the following
procedure based on the familiar research that states that only 10% of
one’s impact is through the words alone.
- The amount of
information necessary she must hold and deliver requires maximal use of
the available intellect, will and memory; and
- The necessity of
conveying the presence of “solid power” nonverbally, immediately, and
authentically
She was led through a
series of experiments based on the Ground
strategy until she was able
to:
1. Tell the difference
in her attitude and way of expressing herself;
2.
Make the shift, consciously and quickly;
3.
Make and hold this carriage-strategy-attitude-style-presence in a
meeting;
4.
Do so authentically, naturally, and without anyone realizing.
Our research has
demonstrated that there is a strong correlation
between one’s physical attitude (carriage) and one’s mental and
emotional attitude. This correlation extends to issues of style
and perceived presence.
Being perceived as “solid, dependable, authoritative and powerful”
corresponds to the behavior style variously labeled as “dominant,
controller, or driver”. This in turn corresponds to the
attitudinal states of “calm, unflappable, able to say ‘no’, and detail
thinking”.
These in turn correspond to the strategy of Ground (as introduced by
Musashi’s A Book of Five Rings: A
Classic on Strategy). Viewed
non-verbally we find that in order to access this quality of power,
response, strategy, etc., the individual’s pattern of neuro-muscular
organization shifts predictably in a way described by vector addition
as combining “front and down”.
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Frances - Grasping the Reins of Her Own Power
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Frances
is a 24-year veteran of Goddard
whose responsibilities include overseeing the continuing education of
engineers and administrators. She develops and leads successful
programs within the technical community. She has applied her skills in
the fields of psychology, OD, coaching, and education for decades and
functions as a bridge or interpreter between the technical and the
non-technical communities.
We began with her desire to make fundamental changes in the ways she
responds and deals with conflict, fear, personal power, self-expression
and relationships in general. She wanted to broaden her range of
responses and acquire new responses while upgrading some of the older
ones.
She was asked to work with the Exercising
for Versatility DVD, which
covers a wide range of practices. At each meeting, we discussed
current issues and patterns as well as working with the general
questions of change and power.
Over this past year, she has radically overhauled her entire life and
way of being. People notice and comment on those dramatic
changes, especially how she looks, acts and responds. The way she
handles fear, conflict, personal power, self-expression and personal
relationships are very different and challenging in some
instances. For when you change, you create opportunities and
challenges for everyone else around you.
One of her greatest learning’s came in the realization that not being
in the hard sciences did not mean you couldn’t be a systems
thinker. She discovered that she is a systems thinker and can now
engage more confidently with the scientific systems thinkers.
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Don - From Either/Or to
Real Control
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Don is an
experienced systems engineer who joined
the SEED program to further round out his understanding and skills.
In the earlier
sessions he spoke of himself as
being slow to respond when asked to speak in meetings or give quick
answers, especially concerning leadership issues. Observing him,
it was easy to see that he had developed the habit of holding himself
back.
The downside
of his habit “of being nice”
revealed itself in a Conflict Simulations adapted from the Philippine
martial art of Arnis that uses hollow plastic sticks. Once he
learned the simple pattern he instantly changed from being mild
mannered to acting wild, fast, strong, and aggressive in his
movements. You could always tell if someone had been practicing
with him because the soft covering of their sticks would be shredded or
the stick itself would be broken.
He had a very
strong separation between “nice”
and “powerful” and between “control” and “berserk”. He was given
a series of movements designed to teach him “gentle yet powerful” and
“slow and controlled”. Now when he engages in the Conflict
Simulations he can express himself with calm, clear, strength and
controlled coordination. He is also more comfortable with
speaking and expressing himself in front of a group. He has
successfully graduated the SEED program and is now a mentor for the
current group.
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Barry - How
Not to Intimidate Unnecessarily
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Barry is a
senior systems
engineer and technical administrator. He
is tall, athletic, passionate, very bright, and very politically
astute. The issue he brought to our first meeting was that all
too often he seemed to intimidate many of the engineers and scientists
he worked with.
Observing
him, with his feet
planted flat on the ground, he often leans
directly into the listener’s personal space while speaking and
listening. What he learned:
- To
recognize when he has “scared” the listener by
watching their face and posture change, and when he realizes that they
have stopped listening to also recognize his own tendency to push even
harder when listeners shut down or pull away.
- He also
discovered that when he simply shifted
back in his chair or shifted his weight to his back foot when standing,
all of a sudden, the intensity of his presence was dramatically
decreased without him having to “stuff” his own passion. He
immediately applied this in his next meeting and incorporated it into
his normal way of relating.
- He
reported that our work together prepared him,
in a difficult meeting, to be able to recognize when it wasn’t working
and shift his style, attitude, stance, etc. This opened the
boundaries for communication. And when the way got blocked again
(with either the same person or another one at the meeting), he
repeated this procedure until all objections were handled. “I
could not tell you how I did it except that it involved awareness and
non-verbal versatility.
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Carlos -
Bridging the Cross-Cultural Divide
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Carlos
is a brilliant engineer
with an endless thirst for knowledge.
He was born in Puerto Rico yet most all of his technical studies where
in English. Not feeling fluent enough in English to express his
real thoughts and feelings he developed a carriage and way of
responding to “better fit in” with his American colleagues.
Given
his desire to be a leader in the field of systems engineering, we
decided to deconstruct his old method to find a more effective way of
interacting while honoring his cultural background and source of
authenticity.
We
began with the key
non-verbal difference between the presence of
power as recognized in “Latin” cultures versus in the U.S.A., where an
individual is immediately acknowledged as being powerful
when the center of gravity of their composure is located in their lower
belly. As a note, this relatively broad stroke observation is the
product of thousands of real time experiments with executives around
the country and abroad.
In
Puerto Rico, as in many
Latin countries, the center of gravity of
the presence of power is located higher, almost in front of the
chest. The cross-cultural misunderstanding begins here, because
in the English speaking U.S.A., such a high center of gravity can
immediately produce
the assessment of arrogance.
By
recognizing these
non-verbal cultural differences, he has brought
forth into his everyday conversations and meetings his “true”
self. Being himself, he finds it much easier to modulate this
presence, gestures, and speaking to maximize his communication
effectiveness. As an additional bonus, he feels much more
comfortable relating to his non-Latin colleagues and neighbors.
These
changes were
dramatically obvious to his Division Chief who has
known him for many years. He described someone who lived in his office
and if fed enough pizza and soda would solve any problem he was
given. Now he saw a very different man, a confident, expressive,
and responsive leader.
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Robert - The
Power of Yielding
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Robert
is thirty-five years old; he is dynamic, persuasive, and fights
for what he believes in. He is facing the biggest challenge ever
in
his career and he knows that his favorite way of handling conflict will
not work in this situation.
“I put together the largest non-capital investment deal the bank had
ever considered, and the largest deal I had ever brokered. The
rumor
mill warned me that there was real resistance to changing the way the
bank had been doing business. I had a strong sense that my usual
style
of fast comebacks and forceful presentation was not going to work.”
After questioning Robert about his style and the styles of the others
involved, I realized that this situation fit the martial arts strategy:
Centered
and calm. Solid
as a rock. I choose to yield.
As he began to absorb this idea, his shoulders spontaneously relaxed
and his center settled into his belly. In this state, he knew
that he
didn’t have to push to succeed. In fact, the idea of adjusting to
the
situation seemed not only the right thing to do, but doable.
No practice, no matter how perfect it is, works optimally unless the
person’s thinking and feeling is aligned with their muscles.
Since it
was clear that he “got it” at least mentally, I gave him the following
exercise.
- When he is at the
meeting his job is to sit with his feet
firmly
on the floor, relax unnecessary tensions, and let his breath and center
shift to his lower belly.
- Now, use this solidity
or positive tension to strengthen
his spine.
- When the situation
required him to speak or respond, he was
to
first move his torso back, just a bit, and wait for a second or so, and
then return to his original sitting position.
- Then trust himself to
say or do what he felt was right
Here is his report. “I arrived at
the
meeting to find my direct supervisor waiting for me. He informed
me
that he would not support my proposal. Thankfully, I had gotten
up
early and practiced. Feeling my breath in my belly and holding my
stance solid, I contained my reactions and simply said, ‘I
understand.’ I entered the meeting room to discover that I was
first
on the agenda.
“Before
I had a chance to
speak, our CEO suggested that since there was
a lot of resistance to this proposal it should be tabled for several
months. Then he turned to me and asked, ‘Is this okay with
you?’ As
soon as he began to speak I felt myself preparing to do battle.
Quickly, I caught myself. With an exhale, I relaxed my shoulders and
remembered that I was centered and calm, solid as a rock, and that I
was choosing to yield instead of fighting back. ‘I'm okay with this.’ I
said calmly.
“As
the meeting came to a
close, an hour later, the CEO turned to me
and said, ‘I want to make sure that your interests are being
handled.
Is there anything you would like to say?’ Maintaining my calm
center,
I spoke about the bottom-line fiscal benefits of my proposed
investment. As I went on, I let my natural enthusiasm take over
as I
outlined how the deal would work. The meeting closed with the CEO
recommending that my deal be studied further. Two weeks later, I
got
the green light to go ahead.
"Something
about the way I
presented myself at the meeting shifted my
identity. I was given a big promotion and was invited to move
from the
local office to company headquarters. I am clear that I never
would
never have come up with this strategy on my own. It changed the
whole
way I do business."
Centered
and calm. Solid as a rock. I choose to yield.
This
is the strategy of: Ground
– Ground – Water.
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Leo - Cutting through
Indecision
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Leo, a
midlevel manager, was sent to see me because
somehow, despite his clarity,
motivation, and excellent skills, he was not able to carry through on
some of his most important initiatives.
Even
after years of
professional development training, Leo could not
understand what he was doing to get in his own way. After
spending
some time with him I suspected that he was “suffering” from the
downside of one of his greatest gifts. Leo was an excellent
analytic
thinker who was also able to speak about and from his feelings.
These
two capabilities are not often found in the same person.
Since
the crux of the problem
was carrying his decisions all the way
through to the end, I worked with Leo using a movement based on the
samurai warrior swinging his sword, cutting through all
obstacles.
This movement has seven distinct stages, each of which represents a
possible breakdown in decisiveness. A short movie of this
practice, Samurai
Decisiveness, is in our Library of
Movies.
With
the first three stages,
opening, choosing, committing, he had no
difficulty at all. However when it came to swing the sword down
and
through whatever is in the way, the real and simple issue was
obvious.
Ideally, when you release your power, for a moment at least, you have
to let go of your attachment to either doing it perfectly or not
wanting to hurt anyone. When this is working well, your spine
stays
upright and the only movement is through the shoulders.
When
Leo swung the sword, his
whole body went with him. He bent at the
waist as the sword came down. While from his point of view it
felt
like he really released the power, from an objective point of view very
little useful power was revealed. With a few simple
demonstrations,
Leo was able to understand how his habitual method was
counter-productive.
I
took him through the
practice several times until he could swing the
sword without following it with his torso. We also worked on
several
ways he could practice this while speaking.
When
we next met he reported
three things. First, he was now able to
catch himself right before he sabotaged his efforts and then go ahead,
just as he wanted. Second, he realized that because he had spent
so
much of his life with his power not coming through he had picked up a
backlog of frustration both at himself and others.
Third
and most important, he
realized that when he was moving fast, he
needed to really check in with others to find out if he had been too
strong. When this happened he cleaned it up immediately, thereby
strengthening his reputation as someone who is strong yet caring.
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Bob - Toning Down without
Stuffing Passion
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I was
brought in to work with
the Vice-President of a 500 million
dollar company in the food industry by the CEO. The problem, as
it was
expressed to me, was that “Bob” was much too intimidating. As
soon as
we met, I understood what the complaints were about.
It
wasn’t that he was trying
to intimidate or was domineering. Bob’s
passion index was sky high. He spoke as he lived – right up in
your
face. After a series of questions about his career path, it got even
clearer. Bob came up through the blue collar ranks. He did
not scare
these people but he certainly seemed to scare “the suits”.
Bob
was not a self-reflective
person. It was immediately apparent that
if I asked him to tone down his passion by observing his mind, he
couldn’t do it. It felt too much like stuffing his passion and
living
a lie.
So
here is what I gave him as
a practice. As soon as he got passionate
about what had to get done, he was to simply shift his weight so that
there was more weight on his back foot than on the front one (about
60-40). Instantly it became clear, both to observers and to
himself
that he was just as passionate but somehow it didn’t come across so
intense.
Since
this practice only
demanded a very small mental act and one that
did not interfere with his passion state, it did not trigger his
inauthentic button. Bob immediately turned this into a new
habit. The
problem was neutralized.
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Victoria
- The Mechanics of Poise
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Here
is a story about
the power of poise and the physics
of
mechanical advantage. Victoria wants more poise, a calm and
self-assured dignity. She reports that her mood shifts back and
forth
between being open and friendly to feeling frustrated, critical, and
angry. This has created difficulties in her personal
relationships as
well as professionally.
Watching Victoria’s carriage while sitting in her chair and her way of
standing and sitting, I had a better sense of what she really
wanted.
Non-verbally, poise is a graceful controlled way of standing, moving,
or performing an action. To be graceful is to flow as you move
with a
unified center held lightly.
Victoria’s familiar mood shifts showed as a split in her overall
balance. On one hand, she sat down, not up, with her chest somewhat
collapsed. On the other hand, her face looked open with her
chin
lifted and her neck looked tense and tight under the weight of her
head. Neither way of balancing was conducive to moving with grace
or
flow.
When one moves gracefully we often say they seem to move
effortlessly.
To this end, I taught her a exercise based on the physics of mechanical
advantage. I introduced the practice with a simple image.
Imagine
that her car had a flat tire. Too heavy, of course, to pick up
with
just her hands, she had to use a jack. She might use a
lever type
where with each press downward, the car was lifted up a notch.
Or, she
could use a screw jack, where with very little output of effort the car
almost floats up.
Victoria’s normal method for standing was lever-like. Pushing downward
and moving directly forward, she stood up. A strong presence but
not
with that quality that says, poise. Many successful people believe that being
direct is the only way to build positive professional and personal
power.
The mechanical
advantage of
the screw method comes from taking a longer and more indirect
path.
Said in another way, to act in an indirect manner can feel like being
weak and ineffective. Yet with the indirect mechanics of the screw
jack, you can lift your car with the strength of just one finger.
Cultivating
Poise: A Non-Verbal
Practice
1.
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Activate
Centered Presence by remembering
legs and feet, arms and hands, spine and head, and breath.
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2.
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Activate
your old habits by wanting to
stand up – directly and then relaxing the desire.
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3.
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Instead
of levering upwards, begin
by turning your head, twisting your shoulders and torso, as your weight
shifts onto the “front” leg.
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4.
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Continuing
on this spiral path, your
knees straighten as your elbows and hands expand a bit to the sides –
carried by the centrifugal force of your turning.
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5.
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Voilà!
You are now standing.
Depending on the path you take, you can end up facing in the direction
you choose. |
Moving via spirals, you
can experience a sense of
space
between your bones. Supported by your muscles, instead of trying
to
hold yourself up, a quality of presence emerges that resonates with the
ideas of dignity and inner calm. In the martial arts, this is
called
silk cocoon wrapping and is associated with effortless power.
Summing up, Victoria’s practice was three-fold.
- Noticing when she lost
her dignity/poise.
- Being prepared for the
sabotaging stories of her bureaucracy of habits.
The
difference
was palpable, to everyone.
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Cheryl
- From Frustrated Ambition to Being Unstoppable
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Some
people seem to have an easy time
moving forward on their goals and dreams. Others find that
crossing the spaces
between dreams and goals and actions is filled with obstacles.
Obstacles
come in many
forms. One
of the most difficult is the invisible obstacle. That is, you
find
yourself stopped, again and again, yet there is nothing tangible in
front of you that you can clearly see, name, or grasp. Some keep fighting. Some seek for ways
around the obstacle. Some blame others. Some blame themselves.
Cheryl
declares that she is
fed up with giving up on her dreams, but she doesn’t know how to do
anything about it.
"After years of indecision, I am finally clear that I have to start my
own business. I have to take the risk to step out on my
own. I'll
never know if I was right unless I do it. I no longer want to
settle
for less and give in to other people's pictures about what I am capable
of achieving. Even
though I
am prone to feeling anxious and insecure when facing the unknown, I
want to stop myself from getting in my own way.”
Spending
time with Cheryl, it
was clear that now was the time and she was truly ready to go for her
goals. It
was also obvious – from the 90% non-verbal factor - that her normal
posture, readiness habits, and way of gesturing would again get in her
way. Observing her
non-verbally, you could see that her story about how she sabotaged
herself by not just holding back but also by pulling back was
concretely real.
Because
she was used to
working with
positive thinking and affirmations, I gave her one that was a
translation of the Five Rings statement, Inner and Outer Fire with Ground in the
middle. The
words were, Spirit clear. Intention
unshakable. I am unstoppable. Within
seconds, her spine straightened, her face cleared and you could almost
hear her thoughts, “Yes, I can do it. Yes, I will do it.”
She
reported that, “All of a
sudden
I realized that I had been letting my head and my fears overpower what
I knew deep in my heart.”
I
showed her a simple Internal
Exercise that combined taking a step with the mental image of moving
forward as if she were a mountain, with her weight solidly on the
ground and her hands filled with strength. We
worked with this until she could tell the difference between this new
way and her normal way. I gave her a few guidelines for practicing in
daily life and tips for recovering this state with ease.
Here
is her report. “A
couple of
days later I was having coffee with several of my friends.
Instead of
my usual complaining about how I was bored and dissatisfied, I boldly
spoke of my long held desire to open a retail crafts store. My
friends
were shocked, for I had never mentioned my dream to them.
“After
I spoke, I felt myself
wanting to melt back into the seat and my confidence began to
disappear. Immediately,
I heard echoing in my mind the words, ‘Spirit clear. Intention
unshakeable. I am unstoppable.’ Instead of continuing my habitual
collapse of spine and spirit, I re-straightened my spine, and sat up
strong and clear.
“My
friends were amazed.
They had
never seen me like this before. I must have drawn upon some previously
untapped core of inner strength. Everyone
got excited with me and we started thinking about how to make this
happen. One thing led to another and it turned out that a friend
of
one of the group has also wanted to do this but needed a partner.
I
called her. We got together. We open in a few months.
“Every
once in a while I still
feel
that old insecurity and doubt. When I do, instead of giving into
it, I
straighten my spine, breathe into my chest and move forward like a
mountain. I use this
practice all the time. I never realized how this simple pattern
ran through my whole life.”
Spirit clear.
In the language of Chinese medicine, your spirit is an energy that
emerges from
your heart and rises up to the top of your head. This is an inner
Fire
quality.
Intention unshakeable.
Mind aiming outward toward its goal is the non-verbal component of
intention. To be unshakeable, that is, unmoved by outer
circumstances
or inner doubt requires a Ground
attitude with its corresponding carriage and dynamics.
I
am unstoppable. This
is the gift and curse of moving like Fire.
When supported by an inner Fire
and with Ground in the
middle, barriers are no longer obstacles.
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Shelly -
Clear, Decisive, and Non-Aggressive
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The
following is a situation
and solution that is encountered quite
frequently. One of the first times I dealt with it was with
Shelly,
newly promoted to her first real position of authority. I was
asked to
work with her by her boss.
Shelly’s success was a direct function of her ability to produce
results by listening and building consensus. The immediate
problem, as
she expressed it, was the necessity of firing a member of her new
team. She knew that she did not know how to do this without
feeling
like she was “losing her compassion.”
Observing her as she spoke, I saw that her normal posture was one
usually found with people who were listeners at the expense of being
decisive. Quite often, the individual in question has a rounded
and
slightly hollow shape to their chest and they tend to shift back just a
little right after they say something that could produce conflict.
I took her through a series of experiments to show her an alternative
way of sitting and talking, one that allowed her to access her natural
decisiveness and show her strength of character. The
essence of the
practice is simple. I asked her to sit forward on her chair with
one
foot slightly in front of the other and with more weight on the front
foot. Her hands were placed palm down on her thighs and I asked
her to
imagine that no one could pick them up.
In this body-mind state, she spoke with clarity and decisiveness yet
did not come across as aggressive. This it turned out was her
biggest
fear and self-sabotage. When she sat in this new way, she felt
like
she was both in control of herself and the situation and that her old
fear no longer made any sense. I gave her some additional
guidelines
for taking this new way of being into her daily professional life.
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Christina
- Showing Heart without Showing Weakness
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Christina
was a top
executive in a multibillion dollar
company. Her team was in shambles from her slash and burn
style.
After meeting with her, it was clear why her team found
her uncaring and aggressive. In this type of situation, the path
of least resistance is to show how becoming more caring actually leads
to becoming more powerful. Aggressiveness is often the outer
cover of a fear of weakness.
The images of strength, caring, and cover all come together when we
talk about the chest. There are two primary ways to hold your
chest. One is as a breastplate as in a suit of armor. The
other as a breast space.
When the muscles of the chest are held tightly, they activate the
breastplate state of mind which serves as a wall to protect and/or
contain. When the muscles of the chest are held more softly with
a resilient quality, they activate the breast space state, which serves
as an open space which promotes listening and taking care.
Another image we used together with this is that of being grounded,
i.e., solid, unmovable, and strong vs. being ungrounded, i.e., airy,
easy to move, and weak.
When you combine breastplate with not grounded it increases the odds
that the person will become aggressive under pressure. When it is
combined with grounded, it yields calm under pressure and in full
control.
Combining breast space and grounded conveys the presence of someone who
is strong yet heartful. When it is combined with being
ungrounded, there is the tendency to it lose yourself in taking care of
others.
Understanding why she is taking the risk of “opening up”, I led
Christina through a series of movements and sparring-like interactions
that built up her trust that she could be both powerful and
caring. Christina was also given a set of guidelines for taking
this new learning into her professional and personal life.
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Anna -
Every Language has its Different Effects
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Although this next story
focuses on a personal problem, it
reveals something that is also seen among multi-lingual
executives.
This situation is so clear that we decided to use it anyway.
Anna came to see me for some insight in dealing with a chronic immune
system dysfunction that produced symptoms as diverse as arthritis and
depression. For some reason, our conversation went to
language. Anna
told me that she not only spoke a handful of languages but that she
also thought in four of them.
Here is what we discovered. When she thought in her native
language,
Mexican Spanish, the pain and symptoms quickly came to the fore and she
felt powerless. When she thought in Castilian Spanish, she still
hurt
but her mood shifted to “how dare you attack me.” When she
thought in
English, she immediately shifted to an investigative mood, trying to
understand what was the problem. And when she thought in Italian,
there was no pain at all, only joy and happiness.
This language – body phenomenon we have observed many times and in many
different ways. Most importantly to me, it reminds us that when
we
translate between cultures using only the words, we are missing the
real meaning and opportunities.
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