Do you believe work affects home? Home affects Work? If you said, “Yes,” then chances are good you are a realist. Just ask any parent with a critically ill, injured, or disabled child – or simply sick will do. Just ask the 44-year old man who just learned that his 12-year old son is not his. Everybody has a story. When a person divorces, all that says is that there has been some emotional upheaval going on in his or her home life for some indefinite period of time. If Al Gore had been in the White House with an unstable marriage, is it fair to say it would have impacted his attention to business detail? His relationship with the President? His decision making acumen?

The real question becomes, “How can you – or HR – help your employees struggling when you may not even be aware that root cause is emanating from their personal life?” Under what circumstances is it appropriate to offer help based upon your observations that it could be personally driven that “something is not right”? What informal resources can you draw upon to offer support? Any formal ones you know about?

Yesterday I watched numerous proud husbands, wives, moms, dads, siblings, and even children look on as their loved one received a 40 Under 40 Leadership Award hosted by the Triangle Business Journal in Raleigh, NC.  Publisher Charlene Grunwaldt’s closing comments directed attention onto the family members whom she recognized as clearly deserving recognition in their own right. 

Because effective leadership training does not separate personal development from professional development, researchers study the relationship between work and home to determine how much is cause and effect versus correlation, the latter meaning they equally create impact on each other.  It is no surprise that both arenas are impacting each other; however, only hypotheses can be offered regarding which is more impactful, and almost always researchers end up saying, “It depends.” 

Here are some ideas you may find useful in determining what “it depends” upon:

1. Sometimes stressful family circumstances (e.g., special needs child, rebelling adolescent, alcoholic spouse, financial distress, etc.) are handled in a stress-lowering vs a stress-escalating manner.  It depends upon how mature one’s coping mechanisms, which can then transfer to the work place.

2.   Indeed there is such a thing as toxic work environments, and there are ways employees can de-tox before arriving home to avoid displacing their upset onto family members, thereby restoring family peace and harmony.

3. Sometimes people complain about their emotional climate that they unknowingly help create.  If you look at life in fault-finding fashion, your will create reactions from others that offer more to complain about beyond the original stressor.   It depends upon individual differences in how one views life, because we engage life according to how we view it. 

Whether home life affects work more than work life affects home, it all depends upon individual differences because “wherever you go, there you are”! Bottom line here has to do with the degree of self-awareness and emotional intelligence one has nurtured into his or her life.  Chances are good if one were to practice heightened self-awareness in only one arena of life (work or home), it would undoubtedly impact all areas of life. 

The good news is that processes do exist that hone self-awareness within dependable timeframes. Even if your focus is family life improvement, work will routinely and systematically get better.

Bob joins the team, and the honeymoon period is over. Are others’ morale soaring or plummeting? Are you seeing alliances and/or alienations among various people? Are you seeing morale soar and people grow?

Jennifer leaves the team. Does the morale escalate or de-escalate? Are alliances formed and strengthened among certain people who remain? Or is there a different scenario that unfolds?

Social pschologists study group dynamics from many different angles. Start a discussion with your own experience. I’ll supply what the research has to say about whatever the various dynamics. Pose a question for a quick response. Learn how to avoid repeating disaster and other tips. On the upside, learn what practices work and cause teams to thrive.

The “20-something” sitting next to me on a flight several months ago boldly proclaimed that he was in the perfect generation – Generation Y – to soar to the top of his Fortune-500 company. He went on to say that with the Generation Y work philosophy of “work to live” so prevalent across his cohorts, that “somebody’s got to be the CEO of GM!” With that said, he seemed to marinate in his self-assurance of his upcoming corporate ascension. I simply proposed that perhaps there were enough others sharing his view that he could encounter some unexpected competition.  He appeared unmoved.

 Is there indeed this counter movement of sorts going on here? Yesterday after having addressed the Alamance Chamber of Commerce on leadership implications within our multigenerational workforce, more evidence came in to support our need to avoid stereotyping. There were sufficient Generation Ys in the audience who spoke afterwards of their ambitions. However, they also shared their concern regarding having to job hop most of their adult life, given the forecast suggests they’ll experience some 20 careers during their adult years. And here I was thinking this was something they looked forward to and enjoyed.  I stand corrected.

 Then there was the aging Baby Boomer who voiced his opinion to me that “while the entitled Y employees show great interest in promotions, they also seem intent on working from home and maintaining hours that are not in alignment with their lofty career goals.” He then added, “Being technologically savvy does not make them suddenly understand the intricacies of business or the subtleties of what works in our industry.” Without using the words “they want more for less,” that was essentially his message.  

 Admittedly in preparing for this Chamber talk, I found the literature offering conflicting information. For example, one article would tout the similarities between, say, Generation X (born after 1960) and Y (born around 1980), while another article devoted itself to their stark differences. Then another article would glorify the most recent crop of workforce inhabitants, while the very next article would slam them.

 Perhaps like anything else, we should go back to focusing on individual differences rather than all the hype regarding our generational differences and stereotypes.   With this in mind, we may become a bit more pointed as we conduct job interviews with our future candidates - regardless of generation.

Gallup found that 15% of employees are actively disengaged and busily acting out their unhappiness at work. If you can name someone who fits this description, you have a human virus in your organization who is impacting morale, turnover, productivity, profits, customer loyalty, and even safety.  Because the poll also found that 57% of your employees are not engaged, meaning they are putting in time but not energy, this sizeable group tends to become the prime target of the actively disengaged.

But, wait – there is some good news here.  You have 28% of your workforce who are truly engaged and also able to influence the same 57% who are simply not engaged.  With the actively engaged almost doubly outnumbering the actively disengaged, the prospects are good for creating a positive culture that is ready to take on your competition in innovation, collaboration, and sales.  

By formally organizing the mixture of these 3 groups to serve on committees designed to raise work morale (e.g., wellness activities, employee recognition, Fun Fridays, in-house surveys, etc.), oftentimes management can discover the underpinnings for what’s working and what’s not working regarding their engagement index.  

We’d like to hear what you have done over this past year to raise your engagement index.  I’m curious if you did anything in particular to target your Generation X or Y versus the Baby Boomers as a part of your overall effort.

I have an 82-year old friend, Solly Ganor, who amazingly survived Dachau among many other life-threatening Nazi dangers during the early-to-mid 1940s when he was just a teenager. Although there is a part of me that believes Solly had to have had some kind of constant and consistent divine intervention and guidance, unquestionably Solly’s emotional intelligence played a huge role in his own survival and that of others.

Once emotional intelligence is well honed, there is a certain social knowingness that creates communicating under difficult circumstances almost an intuitive, spontaneous engagement that favors a positive outcome.  Without the effort of conscious thinking, one can consider consequentially the possible responses  to one’s verbal and nonverbal communication and tweak accordingly, all within the matter of seconds.  It may be either what we do or say or what we don’t do or say that determines the outcome we strive to achieve. It would be extraordinary for any of us to have such high stakes as Solly Ganor as we navigate our social world through our current skill level of emotional intelligence.  

Author of Light One Candle, Solly Ganor has already earned fame in Europe. Upon reading his book that had been recommended by one of our leadership workshop graduates, Barry Koplen, I contacted Solly, and we’ve since developed a friendship that seems to have spanned years instead of months. I asked Solly if he’d be willing to offer some examples of how his own emotional intelligence likely saved his life as well as an example of how he witnessed someone else not using emotional intelligence that resultantly cost his or her life.  This is how Solly responded to the latter, using an excerpt from his original manuscript dated July, 1944.

July 1944 – “While we were marching in the rain through the streets of Kovno, some tried to escape and were quickly shot down by the guards. I could hear the submachine guns shooting all along the marching columns. Dozens of men were killed that way; nevertheless a few managed to escape. I too was looking up and down the streets trying to find a way to escape. My parents and my sister Fanny told me that I should try to save myself when an  opportunity presented itself. At one point when the rain was coming down really heavy, and the black clouds darkened the sky, I saw a man suddenly step out of the column and turn quickly into a side street. My heart began to beat faster, and I was about to follow him when he made the mistake of his life. He started running. A Gestapo man who jumped out of nowhere saw a man running and opened fire on him. I saw him fall and lay still in a puddle of water that soon turned red. If he hadn’t lost his nerve and would have quietly walked on, the German perhaps would have thought that he was a Christian Lithuanian. Only those that didn’t look Jewish and kept a cool head managed to escape.  Had I followed the man, I would have been lying there next to him, dead in a water puddle,  or, perhaps  if I used my intelligence and didn’t panic I may have walked away to freedom.  After that incident I didn’t try to escape anymore. Had I known what was waiting for us in the Nazi concentration camps,  I would have taken the risk, come what may. (Excerpts from my original manuscript.)”

Strong emotional intelligence involves the ability to automatically consider consequentially the impact of one’s words or actions.  In all fairness, I must preface my comments with the acknowledgement that under such dire circumstances, it’s hardly fair to judge anyone who made a fatal mistake. It is highly likely that when faced with almost certain death, even those with strong emotional intelligence could send out unintended cues, no matter how subtle. However, in this instance, the running was not subtle and was furthermore certain to draw attention to himself.  Our own law enforcement personnel may question people who are drawing attention to themselves in non-criminal ways (e.g., running out of a store, driving too slowly, looking nervous while examining merchandise, etc.).

Can you think of an example in a corporate setting where someone’s communication elicited a negative response such that had they thought of the possible consequences of their behaviors, they could have avoided the negative impact?

 With emerging markets and globalization creating competition in unprecedented ways, who will be the winners in the mad rush to the finish line in Biotech or Energy or IT innovation – or any kind of innovation? After hearing CEO Chris Kearney of SPX Corporation present in the Wachovia Lecture Series this past week, and then speak with his board member Emerson U. Fullwood, it’s no surprise Kearney’s team members are “surfing in the waters of our economic storm” in a fashion that may have some of SPX’s top competitors just a tad nervous.

In support of the kind of leadership that ahead-of-the-pack innovation requires, on March 26, 2010 the Triangle Business Journal quoted Henry Hutchenson of ReGeneration Partners on Daniel Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind: “As this is no ordinary downturn, it will require out-of-the-box thinking to make your way through.  Pink scientifically demonstrates how we can better leverage our right brain to create innovative solutions to seemingly hopeless situations.”

The real question now becomes for our readers, “How can I tap into my right brain this way? And what the heck is housed inside my right brain anyway?” Creativity, empathy, and emotional intelligence among other jewels all occupy the right brain, and leveraging this part of your brain can be achieved through experiential workshops of a self-awareness nature.  Want to know more? Email info@leadershiptrust.org for a white paper expanding upon innovative processes promoting innovative solutions.  We would also enjoy hearing your own success stories that required your own out-of-the-box thinking.

The degree to which you see similarities between a spiritual journey workshop and leadership training tells me how familiar you are with the essence of personal and professional development. In other words, there should be a lot of overlap between the two if indeed some profound change is to take place.

Sunday March 28, 2010, between 9 am and 11am, I’ll have the privilege to work with some unusually gutsy women who inspire me every year. The retreat is entitled Women on a Spiritual Journey to Healing, where the theme this year is ’No One Can Judge You Unless You Allow Them.’ (For local, interested women, join us at Avila, located  in Durham, NC.)

These are women from different walks of life – women recovering from medical challenges, substance abuse and other issues, women who have opened their own businesses in the past year and overcome all odds against them.  If you want to experience human authenticity at its best, there is a certain raw appeal in these courageous women, and I am humbled every single time I am given the privilege to engage them. These are women who have been strengthed by their own acknowledged vulnerability, whose real strength of character has grown from “a scared place,” a place from where their courage mysteriously appeared only because there was no other way out of their darkness.   

Dian Wilson, Housing for New Hope, is a graduate of our Self-Awareness Workshop, and is the brainchild behind this offering, and Terry Allebaugh, who is a graduate of our Personalized Leadership Development Program and the Executive Director of Housing for New Hope, has made it possible for hundreds of homeless people to find not just a home, but reason to hope and to live and to love again.   That’s leadership at its best, and this blog is a tribute to their fine work and the joy I get to feel being a part of their enterprise.

What would you do? Let’s say you have someone on your executive or management team who fulfills the description of brilliant brute. ”John is brilliant, forward thinking, driven, highly capable and knowledgeable but is inadvertently demoralizing those with whom he works.  People are publicly chastised, put down , and … well, nobody is as smart as this one-man show known as John.”  If only we could tease out the bad (that which is not working) such that his gifts and talents could catapult to a whole new level.  The boss has declared that “John” is a keeper because of the value he has added over the years but contends he “must change”.  Sound familiar? What did you do? Or what would you do?

“Thinking is easy, acting is difficult, and to put one’s thoughts into action is the most difficult thing in the world.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”  Mark Twain

Both of these great literary figures have put the key to success into one step- take action.  It is simple, yet complex at the same time.  It is easy to be overwhelmed when we assume action has to be a huge step, but it really doesn’t have to be so complicated.  Sometimes, a simple identification of the true problem is the hardest step, but once the problem is known, the solution comes easily.

Breaking down the big steps into smaller portion that you can tackle daily will help you realize the goals, projects, aspirations, and changes you want to see in your life.  One day at a time, one step at a time, you will achieve your goals before you even know it!

What do you do to help break down the big picture into smaller steps?  Please share your tips with us!