Is your boss a bully who needs to feel important and boosts his ego by withholding important information from you? Or maybe you work with someone who is so fearful of argument or criticism that problems go unsolved because she won't discuss them. -Anne Fisher, Writer, Time.com Read Full Text...
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Money and Meaning It's all interwoven with the story of family. Leadership Excellence Magazine By Sylvia Lafair
THINK ABOUT THE WORD money. Do you experience tightness in your gut worrying about cash flow, or notice a smile on your lips, knowing assets are safe, or feel the beginning of a nasty headache around recent losses?
Why did you write this book and what do you hope to accomplish with it?
A:I've been writing this book in my mind ever since I began to see the powerful impact that leaders who are aware of life patterns can have in revolutionizing the way employees react and teams cooperate. I felt that my work in business was making amazing headway. As I offered executives and their teams the secrets of why we interact the way we do, I could see less on-going conflict and lots more innovative solutions. My hope is that organizations take a deeper look at what we need from our places of employ besides a paycheck. We are coming out of a time when greed and deception have been nailed and that more is not necessarily the royal road to happiness. Understanding how relationship systems operate is crucial work today. What better place to create a real learning environment and culture of trust than where we spend so much of our time - at work. Then we can take what is learned to our partners, children, and communities.
What does the title mean "Don't Bring It to Work: Breaking the Family Patterns that Limit Success"?
A: I often hear "Damn, I wish she wouldn't bring her angry boyfriend stories to work. Or, I wish he would shut up about his annoying father." I started to think about what we bring to work that is not part of the contract we sign. The TV series "The Office" is a great example of what not to bring to work and it is successful because it speaks to us at a very primal level. We do, as my subtitle says, bring our family patterns to work until we learn to transform them. Basically, we can behave in a grown-up manner much of the time and be respectful and responsible. Yet, when stress is activated, especially during this unprecedented economic crisis, there is a natural inclination to revert back to behaviors from childhood embedded as survival mechanisms. We take on the behavior of a three or five or twelve year old and it can become an emotional virus that takes over the whole team, the whole company. I was in a meeting with leaders at a major hospital and I kept getting the image of these well respected people sitting in high chairs banging their spoons and throwing oatmeal at each other.
What convinced you that your approach would work with business organizations?
A: It was one of those "Aha" moments when two non-related ideas connect and suddenly all kinds of possibilities open up. In my early work life I had a psychotherapy center with a focus on couples, families, schools, and healthcare. With relationships you have to think systems, interactions, reciprocity, and connections. Relationships have a whole set of invisible rules and we all take on roles, just like being in a Broadway play. It's utterly fascinating. Once we decipher what is going on, make the invisible visible, relationships are so much easier to manage. One day a man asked if I would be willing to work with his senior management team. They were, as he said, "backbiting and fighting, just like a family." Then the "aha" moment! Families are connected through genetics, the work world through economics! Genetics, economics, both are deep drivers for our behavior. My results from working with this leadership team were striking. They started to cooperate and soon had more contracts than they ever believed possible.
