The current economy is having a real impact on my company. Not just in terms of financial challenges, but through the impact on team morale.
“What are you guys facing and how are you handling the impacts of today’s economic situation?”
That’s what one of the CEOs in my monthly leadership cohort meeting asked the group this morning.
The group began to ask some clarifying questions about what he had tried. They explored a range of motivational ideas. One leader suggested having after hours gathering to bring the team together. We do that, but lately the attendance is dwindling. They don’t seem to be that interested. Another leader’s suggestion was to try to understand what they want or need. Perhaps run a survey asking what they feel would help in these tough times. And so it went. One suggestion after another. All of them were useful, but none of them seemed to help. Something was still missing. I stopped the conversation and refocused it with a different question.
If we looked at the organization as a person, what might it be feeling?
The room got quiet for a moment. One person offered that maybe they’re not feeling appreciated. That didn’t quite land with the CEO. Other suggestions the group offered indicated they were trying to solve it by answering the question, “what can a leader do during tough times?” Many of the suggestions the CEO already tried, none got the desired results.
As I quietly listened, I shifted into the Heart Center. I began to sense something else was happening underneath the surface. A pattern of being blocked at every turn. I allowed myself to connect with the organization and open to what it might be experiencing.
“I wonder if the organization isn’t feeling a deep sense of hopelessness,” I offered. “It feels like your team is bordering on being depressed.”
“That’s it! You really framed that right,” the CEO said. That’s what they were feeling.
It’s hard for anyone to stay positive when they know every day is going to be a day they can’t make their desired impact. And I know they feel the same. We often try to solve the challenges we face by finding the right thing to do. And for many of our challenges, that’s the right path. However, there are some situations where the answer lies not in what we do but in who we are being. They are situations characterized by humanness, not our doingness. This is just as true at the organizational level as it is the individual level. These situations can only be addressed from the Heart Center, not our logical, rational brain.
Heart-Centered Wisdom is not a communication technique, nor is it a personality trait that only some leaders have. It’s a skill — a way of accessing information that normal problem-solving can’t reach. I estimate 80% of things that leaders respond to happen in the activity layer: what people are doing, what they should do differently, and what process needs fixing. That layer is real and very necessary. The other 20%, what lies underneath the activity layer, is what leaders normally don’t respond to. I call this the context layer: the feelings, the beliefs, and the stories the organization carries that determine how it responds to life’s events. Heart-Centered Wisdom is how you tap into that underlying 20%.
Here’s a visual to better understand the Heart Center. Think of your body as an antenna always taking in information critical to making effective decisions. Normally, your antenna is tuned to the information in the activity layer. Information we process with our rational, logical, problem-solving system. However, your antenna doesn’t pick up the critical information that lies in the context layer. To access that information, you have to tune into a different frequency. Heart Centering is the process of tuning your antennae.
The practice is a simple three step process.
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- Pause. Take a few deep relaxing breaths. This interrupts the mental process and signals the body to retune the antennae.
- Center. Bring your attention to your body. Scan it. Pay attention to where there is tension, anxiety, or concerns. Allow your breath to release all of it and relax.
- Shift. Bring your attention to the heart center. Remember a time you felt calm, a sense of peace. Where you felt loved or loving. Notice the sense of openness, curiosity, and willingness to see something new. You’re not trying to solve anything, you’re simply listening, paying attention to what’s there.
This is the process I use when I am working through any situation. It doesn’t replace my logical problem-solving process; it adds to and enhances it. The process gives me access to information that my analytical mind can’t provide.
There is a saying, the questions we ask determine the answers we get. I like to add that our frame of reference determines the questions we ask. As that group of CEOs worked through their colleague’s challenge, the questions they asked and the solutions they offered stayed inside the frame of an organization as a machine. That framework was never going to reach the real issue, but the moment it shifted so did the questions.
“What is the organization, as a person, experiencing?”
Different questions revealed a deeper understanding of what had to be addressed: hopelessness. We weren’t troubleshooting morale anymore. We were looking at what it takes for an organization, understood as a person, to keep moving forward when nothing they try seems to be working.
Is your frame of reference giving you the right questions to ask, or is it quietly limiting what you’re able to see? What questions are you asking about the challenges you face? Are they providing you the answers you need or is your frame of reference limiting your ability to ask the right questions? And do you have the skills to tune into the information that can break through the blockages?
Next time you’re sitting with a challenge that isn’t responding to your best ideas, stop trying to think of what else you can do. Shift into the Heart Center and see what you sense. You just might find the key to break open the blockage. If you want nonjudgemental support in the process, contact us.