Be Yourself, Everybody Else is Already Taken – (How to Get What You Want)

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building compassion, career advice expert, Career Change, compay cultural turnaround, corporate accountability, corporate leadership, corporate values, Cultural change, eliminating oppositions, executive coaching, executive coaching for difficult situations, executive coaching for teaching compassion, how to get unstuck, how to get what you want, how to increase productivity, Mary Lee Gannon, overcoming challenges, starting over, starting over now

One can only imagine how genuine these words felt to Oscar Wilde when he penned the expression, “Be Yourself, Everybody Else is Already Taken.” I wasn’t even sure myself until I stumbled upon the quote, was moved by its honest humor and researched the Irish writer’s background to understand what he meant. Wilde was an intelligent, once privileged and highly educated playwright who suffered greatly for opinions and choices that were outside of London society, eventually leading to his imprisonment, poverty and an early death.

No one strives to live a life in exile. Adversity comes at us every day in rapid fire as we dodge and take shelter from its surge. How we handle adversity evolves in many forms. We start by avoiding with denial. Then we survive just to get by often burying ourselves in long hours, rejection, backstabbing or drudgery. We cope sometimes with useful mechanisms such as exercise and communication and sometimes with the negative influences of the vices. We manage by setting goals to be productive but still are void of satisfaction. And eventually, we hope to achieve the ability to elevate ourselves to true contentment and do the same for others. But how we get there remains the dilemma that can keep us imprisoned from all that we desire – peace and fulfillment.

The formula for this is very simple: First, you want to identify what is the thing that if accomplished would bring you the most fulfillment in life. Second, you want to eliminate the single biggest thing that stands in its way. This isn’t as easy. The challenge of eliminating your greatest oppositions has been at the root of self-help books and therapists’ work for centuries.

How to Get What You Want

1. Make an “Area of Importance List.” Write down every area of your life that is important to you. This may include friends, sports, achievement, community service, work, family, etc.

2. Set two or more “Targets” for each Area of Importance. Identify two to three things you’d like to accomplish for each of the areas identified.

3. Identify the “Barriers” for each Target. Barriers could be a feeling or a tangible obstructer ie: don’t have the confidence or don’t have the needed education. Spend thoughtful time on this list as this is what is keeping you from what you want.

4. For each Area of Importance, select the one “Key Barrier.” Which area, if addressed has the greatest potential of helping you the most to reach fulfillment?

5. Prioritize what “Key Target” (from #2) is most important to your fulfillment. This is the one thing that were it to occur, you’d never again feel as if you were out of alignment with yourself or what you want.

6. Prioritize what “Key Barrier” is keeping you from your “Key Target.” This one barrier is so vast and so overwhelming that just the thought of it lapses you back into a state where you can’t even imagine fulfillment coming to life. This barrier obstructs your vision of a life of peace and harmony with yourself and all that is around you.

7. “Clear the Key Barrier.” This is the most difficult part of the exercise. This barrier has been part of you for so long that you are comfortable having it around even though you know it hinders your happiness. You don’t know how to let it go because you are not sure what to replace it with nor are you comfortable with the sustainability of replacing it with anything.

In my years of executive coaching I have seen these barriers effect corporate culture, team synergy, productivity and personal happiness for dozens of very well educated and accomplished professionals. What I will tell you is that the people who are able to win the battle with their “Key Barrier” and get it out of the way do it with two key strategies: 1) They become curious about the “Key Barrier” and 2) They become compassionate to it.

They understand that this “Key Barrier” is part of them and will likely re-surface intermittently for the rest of their lives. They accept that. They recognize when the “Key Barrier” is rearing its head earlier in various scenarios than they used to. And they know what to do with it.

From a curious perspective, they ask themselves what is going on in their body and their emotions when they start to notice the “Key Barrier.” What is that barrier trying to protect you from? Ask it. Why is it showing up now? What is the worst that could happen? What would happen if it were to take a back seat for today?

From a compassionate perspective, they embrace that the barrier is trying to protect them from something – harm?, hurt?, pain?, loss?, disappointment? They notice how they feel about the part of them that is only trying to protect them. It helps them to suffer less resistance to it – be less shut down. They want to nurture it and assure it that the worst that could happen is not likely. They invite it to experience joy.

Be curious and compassionate about your “Key Barriers.” They’re part of you. This way you will get back to being yourself. After all, everybody else is already taken. Start now!

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Mary Lee Gannon is the president of Gannon Group – a full service executive coaching, training and consulting firm that provides turnaround strategies for people and organizations by improving team performance, executive leadership skills, board performance, planning and project execution. Mary Lee’s personal turnaround came as a stay-at-home mother, with four children under seven-years-old, who endured a divorce that took she and the children from the country club life to public assistance from where within a short time she worked out of that to the level of CEO. Her book “Starting Over – 25 Rules for When You’ve Bottomed Out” is available in bookstores, on Amazon or on her web site. Visit Mary Lee’s website at www.StartingOverNow.com or Email Mary Lee at marylee@startingovernow.com.

How to Transform Status Quo to World Class – Negative Values Cost You Money

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corporate attitudes, corporate cutlure, corporate values, starting over. rebuilding culture, transform corporate culture

New and existing employees in an organization model what they see. This is true with respect to what an employee values about a company to his attitudes about his work to the behaviors he exhibits regarding his daily routine. Whatever the leaders are doing gives the other employees a free pass to emulate the same behavior. If a manager breaks the dress code, that makes it OK. If a director leaves at 4:30 p.m. even when a project is running behind schedule, her staff isn’t going to work any later. If an administrator walks past employees without saying hello, other will not feel compelled to be friendly either. All of these things are part of corporate culture. Poorly defined and reinforced values lead to mismanaged culture and become silent killers of the corporate landscape.

Excellent business strategies can be sabotaged by an inattention to the culture. Revenue which should have gone into expanding the business instead goes to the costs of training and re-training and re-re-training employees in key positions because of high turnover – an indication that something is amiss in the culture.

Let’s start with values. The values of an organization contribute to its mission its vision and its purpose. But they are ultimately the single driving factor to corporate culture. If the organization values rules that are set by corporate leaders, employees will behave by following them. If managers value being a productive member of a team, they will behave by staying late if something needs to be finished. If they value good relationships with their work colleagues, they will be happy to greet them in the hall or at meetings.

And defining values and putting them on a piece of paper does not automatically make them “so.” The organization has to live by those values and the leaders have the demonstrate them everyday in everything they do.

Examples of Strong Organization Values. The following list contains examples of sound organizational values: Continuous improvement, Compassion, Commitment, Accountability, Respect, Adaptability, Can-do attitude, Information sharing, Efficiency, Transparency, and Innovation. You can surely name many more. Conversely, there are negative values that evolve when positive vales are neither defined nor consistently reinforced. These negative values take on a life of their own and contribute to the silent but deadly death of morale. These need to be defused immediately as they grow and multiply like a cancer. Once trust is lost it is hard to rebuild.

Examples of Negative Values that evolve in the absence of modeling strong values:

Personal Agendas usually arise when the team is not focused on the mission of the organization but more on their own security. Turf wars occur. Silos are formed. And people generally feel at war over control issues. Leaders must have deeply rooted character traits to model the way of change out of these situations. In a time of crisis is not when you will develop character. It must be present going into the crisis. So leaders need to be chosen wisely. You can rehabilitate skill. But rarely can you rehabilitate character.

Bureaucracy is a form of institutionalized control. Too much hierarchy in the decision making process stifles employee creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. Ultimately it strips away trust and empowerment. The control can halt innovation, creativity, accountability and self-actuating behavior. Bureaucratic organizations tend to lose their
competitive-edge due to the lack of trust in their talent.

Politics is simply a form of personally driven agendas coming down from leaders. Empire building creates internal competition and information hoarding which prevents open problem solving between various parts of the organization. This usually generates out of insecurity and an overwhelming desire for power. Again, the leaders are not aligned with the mission of the organization and are driven by personal gain. When in doubt, revisit your values. There you will find the focus of what decisions should be made. If that doesn’t occur it might be time to find new leaders.

Long Hours are not something that should be expected – certainly not in this day and age. People do not remain employed by the same company for 20 and 30 years like they did 15 years ago. Today the global market has made company’s much more competitive, sadly resulting in many of them being less focused on employee retention. Most employees today don’t even stay three years with the same organization. The expectation that people should work more than what is healthy shows disrespect for the personal needs of the employees. Burnout and resentment become by-products.

Short-term Management Focus can be limiting when long-term growth is compromised. Administrators may sometimes be brought in on short-term contracts which may cause the perception that they will manage differently than a longer tenured officer. A sales force or directors with short-term goals must also have a stake in a long-term strategy to balance their decisions so that there is buy-in to the long-term goals of the corporation.

When leaders of an organization recognize that their current organizational culture needs to transform to support the organization’s goals and progress, change can occur. But change is not easy. A company’s executive team must understand the current organizational culture then decide what the organizational culture should look like to support success. Finally, the executives and respected leaders in the organization must decide to change their behavior to align with strong values of the desired organizational culture. This is the hardest step in culture change. Start now!

Follow Mary Lee on Twitter at StartingOverNow.

For the FREE Worksheets: “Change – Here’s How!” and “Overcoming Adversity is an Every Day Slice of Life?” go to Mary Lee’s web site at: http://www.startingovernow.com/WorksheetsandArticles.html

Mary Lee Gannon is a cultural turnaround and leadership expert who went from being a stay-at-home mother with four children living in an unpalatable marriage behind the facade of a country club life to the reality of divorce, homelessness, and welfare. As a national guest speaker she demonstrates turn-around strategies that transform corporate cultures and took her from an earning capacity of $27,000 to the president and CEO of a hospital foundation. Her book “Starting Over – 25 Rules When You’ve Bottomed Out” is available in bookstores and on Amazon.com. Visit her Web site for a free e-book at http://www.StartingOverNow.com. Sign up for her free e-newsletter at info@startingovernow.com.

Transform Corporate Culture to Increase the Bottom Line

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corporate accountability, corporate culture, corporate leadership, corporate values, procrastination, productivity

Corporate Culture is a harmony of people coming together for a common purpose – their communication with each other, how they manage their time and energy, the way they organize their work, and the way they are led.

Leaders communicate values – the things that really matter to us, ideas and beliefs we hold special so that we may gain clarity and focus for consistent decision making.

Values shape decisions – mutual trust and respect, integrity, empowerment, strong work ethic, fun, open process improvement, transparency.

If the Values of an organization are not consistently defined, articulated and continually reinforced by its Leaders, a Culture of cynicism and mistrust evolves. The results of this are decreased productivity, lack of accountability, limited engagement, deficient work ownership. And ultimately a reduction in the bottom line.

If you are not sure if your company has this problem, ask yourself this question:

Is your revenue what you’d like it to be? Are the employees producing in the same way as if they owned the business? People make or break organizations. And they can create productive cultures based on integrity, teamwork, and results that breed customer loyalty. Or they can function under the radar screen fostering a culture of underperformance. Is your company where it could be? How much is that costing you?

A Culture of Accountability provides a positive work atmosphere for both employees and executive management because everyone shares in the company’s success – everyone owns it. Accountability does not mean that when something goes wrong you look for someone to blame. It comes from appealing to their desire to contribute something meaningful and empowering people to make a meaningful difference. It inspires their true desire to be successful. True accountability must be developed from within, and cannot be imposed. For this reason, sales commissions and bonuses are an effective way of rewarding accountability, but a poor tactic to create it.

Productivity in a corporate culture is often hampered by procrastination. Procrastination feeds a common human desire – Drama! Indeed procrastinating brings on undue stress and anxiety. But the thrill that comes from completing the task at the last minute brings a greater high than simply completing an otherwise mundane task on time. Where is the fun in never testing yourself or realizing your potential to perform on an exceptional level? The problem is that these short-lived thrills, however, do not out weigh the feelings of guilt and powerlessness that precede and follow the work.

In order to control procrastination, you have to be willing to anticipate the payoff first and translate that feeling into the present instead of transferring it to the future. You have to be able to feel the part of the experience that’s superficially positive in the present – the relief in the completion, because that’s what compels you to keep procrastinating for greater drama! Repeatedly allow yourself to envision the relief and accomplishment you would fee if the project were complete. Run this feeling over and over in your mind when you are putting off work that you could begin today.

The next time you find yourself procrastinating, ask yourself these questions:

1) Where in my life am I bored and long for drama or excitement?

2) What does procrastinating allow me to feel that is positive?

3) How can I recreate that feeling now and not wait for it to occur later after much stress and anxiety?

Do the people in your organization need an opportunity to communicate what they can’t or don’t accept or acknowledge about their organization’s personality? Start those conversations now!

Follow Mary Lee on Twitter at StartingOverNow.

For the FREE Worksheets: “Change – Here’s How!” and “Overcoming Adversity is an Every Day Slice of Life?” go to Mary Lee’s web site at: http://www.startingovernow.com/WorksheetsandArticles.html

Mary Lee Gannon is a cultural turnaround and leadership expert who went from being a stay-at-home mother with four children living in an unpalatable marriage behind the facade of a country club life to the reality of divorce, homelessness, and welfare. As a national guest speaker she demonstrates turn-around strategies that transform corporate cultures and took her from an earning capacity of $27,000 to the president and CEO of a hospital foundation. Her book “Starting Over – 25 Rules When You’ve Bottomed Out” is available in bookstores and on Amazon.com. Visit her Web site for a free e-book at http://www.StartingOverNow.com. Sign up for her free e-newsletter at info@startingovernow.com.