Choosing sides is often unconscious. Taking sides is a bit different. Furthermore, It may be more conscious. Regardless, doing the work to become more intentional in picking a side, is worthwhile.
Being part of a team strengthens feelings of belonging, giving each member more resolve to perform well while further bolstering their desire to support the team. The team’s we choose though, impact our perspective and colour our view on the world.
When does team alignment creates blinders and limit our ability to see the perspective of another?
This week’s The Kickass Koach podcast looks at it through the eyes of sport and how we are attached to our team AND how athletes bond both around being an athlete and their team colours.
The newsletter jumps into the impact of our need to belong as a driving force. I also share a recent story of how bonding with one team created poor performance because of the bias that was underlying the decisions that were being made. The Wednesday video on LinkedIn (long version) and Intagram (abbreviated) centers on a conversation with my 15 year old niece who expressed a desire to be her own person even under the pressure from her peers to conform.
Finally, this post is an attempt to bring it all together and connect it to my Bank Your Impact system.
The Power and the Bias Created by Belonging
It feels great to be included and accepted. Unfortunately, the feeling blinds us to the pain of others who are excluded or outside the group. Moreover, it clouds our ability to see different perspectives that are not welcomed or possibly available to those in the group. It’s limiting and often leads to short-sighted and perhaps poor decisions.
Because belonging is such a powerful force, people get stuck in biased thinking far too easily. It is not easy to break this pattern but we all fall prey to it readily.
Power in Numbers
Each one of us feels power when we’re part of a powerful group. In fact, marginalized groups and perspectives are less sticky largely because the members know their power is limited so they jump ship more commonly. Interestingly, it isn’t always about the numbers. It is more about the power within the numbers.
First the power of having the numbers. As the majority, groups drown out different voices. In voting situations, they can literally dominate. In social settings we often see group-think that looks at lot like bullying. Many people report moments in their life when they are aware of unfair treatment but choose to be silent so as not to become a target. This is the power of the majority to silence and control, some times unwittingly.
Second, the power of power. There are times when people take sides not with the numbers but with the power. It may be about money or influence. Sometimes it is simply related to the power of personality.
We all need to be aware of the sides we choose or the take. When making the choice consciously, people live a more self-aware life and choose their own path.
Bias in Perspective
Bias is human. Everyone suffers from bias. Get comfortable with this notion. Now you can do something about it.
We’ve all heard the expression: “don’t shoot the messenger”. The person who pushes back on a group-think or bias is often quickly silenced. This messenger has learned to value perspective. The messenger has cultivated courage and resilience. Additionally, this person enjoys a deep sense of self. Those who do the work to get there make an impact wherever they go.
Finally, being aware of how our need to belong motivates everything we do, offers understanding. Understanding what motivates is an opening to making good choices. When we know we are attracted to those who see the world the way we do it helps us realize the importance of being open to listening to the “other” side.
Choosing Sides Impacts Options and Choice
The moment one chooses, adopts or takes a side they’ve limited their thinking and their options. Be sure the side is a choice! It makes sense to review the choice thoughtfully and repeatedly over time. Once one limits their options, choice contracts or shrinks.
Expanding Options
Expanding options is essential to living a full life of choice and freedom. Many people constrict their choices simply by keeping their world small.
Try the lesson from improvisational class. Yes, and…
One exercise I loved facilitating for every team or department I lead or supported as a consultant is called “the double reversal”. I learned it in a systems class I took during my graduate studies. Clearly our professor loved it too. We didn’t actually practice all the different models or techniques we discussed in class or had to learn as part of the course but this one we played with a couple of times. He said it would expand our thinking. It did.
The exercise forces you to examine problems or thinking from extreme perspectives and encourages you to entertain the most outrageous solutions to problems or options for action. The exercise it self generates laughter and camaraderie once people get over their anxiety about going outside their common, typical frame.
Ultimately, choosing sides limits. People willing to shake up the status quo and challenge their conclusions are more likely to find the most create solutions and solve problems or avoid them all together.
Taking Sides
Most of us take sides rather choose a side. Taking sides is lazy thinking. It is going with the least resistance and some might say that is a better way to live. Of course, it offers ease. Ease has its benefits. Whenever a person finds them self taking sides it is beneficial to ask what may be missed as a result. What may be silenced?
Make taking sides a thoughtful and mindful decision and mix it up once in a while. Be sure the side chosen is contributing to growth in your self or others. This will expand options and better decisions will be the result.
Choosing Sides Limit – Expanding Perspective & the BYI System
My Bank Your Impact System is an eye-opening journey within. We become self-aware when we get comfortable stepping inside our self. Moreover, the journey within enables a conscious recognition of one’s perspective. Expanding perspective is a goal of the Bank Your Influence (BYI) System. We all make better choices when we broaden our options.
At its core, the BYI System seeks to shed light on the participant’s strengths and values, realizing that everything they produce in their life bubbles out of them through the intervening limiting beliefs, attitudes, mindset, patterns and habits. Our frames offer clues helping navigate our journey to self awareness.
The Bank Your Impact (BYI) System is about both developing and embedding self-awareness. Benefits of expanded resilience, connections built on understanding the impact of belonging and an ability to bolster a professional and authentic presence are foundational.
The current system incorporates 1:1 coaching, roundtable conversations; eventually I’ll add a neuro-social learning experience (currently only available in organizational contracts but will be added to the system for individual engagement in 2021).
My approach is based on the ICF (International Coaching Federation) standards. I’m meeting you (my clients) where you are, both as the coaching agreement begins, and in the moment that exists at the time of each conversation. Progress or growth is not a straight line. The ICA model is the framework for every conversation: Issue/Insight, Choice/Commitment, Action/Accountability. Over the past year I’ve been tightening the model to meet the needs of my clients.
Holding space to support my clients in:
- Developing meaningful insights
- Expanding/deepening perspective on those insights
- Building/designing a practice to try on new ways of being/seeing OR experiment for discovery
- Assessing progress, becoming agile in transfer of learning and application before developing additional insights
An organic experience
The experience is tailored around what you bring to each conversation, in my experience, there are common themes that arise including: self-awareness, mindfulness, mindset, communication, connections, and attitude. Self-awareness stands alone but is also a foundational theme. I have registered upwards of 40 sub-concepts that fit under each of these categories. I bring tools, skills and techniques to respond and guide our work together, informed by positive psychology, neuroscience, and management/leadership research.
Walk With Me, to Where You Want to Be
In April 2018, I was struck by, what felt like, a call of purpose; an insight of sorts. It inspired me to shift the focus of my practice. I’m now walking with 30 somethings. People who are at a pivotal spot in life and career. Whether THERE by age or spirit, I want to walk with people at this place in their life. This is a time in life when we are natural SEEKERS. We’re ready to do some self exploration & find the real meaning of our life? It is also a time when we are more likely to get stuck and make poor choices.
The research suggests people embrace their inner REBEL during their 20’s (the most rebellious after the toddler days in fact). If you are passive in your 20’s you will want to get curious about that too! Most of us slip quietly and comfortably though into ACCOMMODATOR in our 30’s. This documented pattern grabbed my attention and my mission was made clear. Moreover, I’m intent on resurfacing, or igniting, that inner rebel, whose perspective, now shaped with more experience, may offer insights many typically miss when insight and awareness matter most.
In June 2018 I took a course in story telling. I was intent on finding my “Big Why” to help me understand my purpose for shifting my practice. Ultimately, I landed on my story. It spans from my childhood, with a pivotal point in my early 20’s finally culminating in a significant career turning-point at the age of 37. This story revealed an unhealthy pattern while illuminating my new purpose. In fact, I feel motivated when remembering the moment of insight because this transition is difficult. Ultimately though, it adds meaning to my work. Listen below…
Feel like you’re living someone else’s destiny?
If that is working for you, great. If it isn’t or it starts to be a problem, reach out. I welcome a conversation.
Willing to do the work to find more meaning?
With the skills to unpack the emotions and barriers and triggers and mindset challenges with the skills in my BYI system, participants begin to see the impact in their career and finally begin to discover what matters most to them. The bonus: they begin to see a path to get there. Join me…
My system is intended to be meaningful, relevant, accessible and affordable. With that in mind, there are many ways to engage with me. Below find THREE ways to get started, without spending a dime.
Walk with Me!
- REGISTER for an ASK ROX RoundTable… TWO LIVE 50 minute engagements available at your desk or phone – the second Tuesday and the last Friday of every month – limited to 12 participants in each and FREE in 2019.
- BOOK a complimentary exploratory 1:1 conversation 20-30 minutes.
- SUBSCRIBE to my mailing list from my home page, receive an interactive exercise helping you cope with stress, and a weekly reflection.
Of course I’d love to bring my work to your team or workplace, you can…
- Book me to speak at your conference or to a group in your organization. My workshops on building resilience, improving workplace outcomes through relationships, and increasing performance are big hits!