by Gayle Gregory

This info can invigorate your career!

The economy is in shambles and people are hunkering down, hoping to ride out the storm. We are all undergoing an attitude adjustment, hoping it is just short-term. If only we could begin again, with an entirely newfound attitude, one that is not based on ‘just until’, but one committed to transformation from this moment forward. If only we could blast the myths that keep us frustrated and unhappy, scared and feeling like we are holding our breath waiting for the next shoe’s fall.

We can! Now is the ideal time to make a fresh new start to reinvigorate your career, help you find balance between your personal and professional experiences, and introduce an exciting new chapter in your work life. Whether you’ve been at your job for a few weeks or a few decades, it’s very likely you have some workplace misconceptions that are eroding self-confidence, limiting your innovation, and damaging relationships. These beliefs will determine your personal success and that of your organization. They could even be the difference between surviving and thriving in today’s marketplace. Believing such stress-inducing myths could put your company out of business — and you out of a job.

Let’s look at and dispel widely-accepted inaccuracies that are probably keeping YOU from enjoying the career satisfaction and topflight salary you deserve:

Myth #1

“You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”

Truth: Programming is not permanent! Now is the ideal time in your life to seek education and training, cultivate hidden talents, practice newfound skills and advance beyond your workplace doldrums.

Myth #2

“You’re better off concentrating only on the positive.”

Truth: Ignoring and resisting negative or fearful thoughts and behaviors won’t make them go away; it actually makes them stronger. Instead use negative emotions to accelerate your transformation.

Myth #3

“Work isn’t supposed to be fun.”

Truth: If you believe that, you’re bound to be resistant, defensive, disengaged and disillusioned. ANY job can offer fulfillment and enjoyment. You’re rewarded not only with salary and benefits, you contribute to the economy and help other people, as you sharpen your lifelong skills.

Myth #4

“There aren’t enough resources to do my job.“

Truth: That thinking breeds turf wars and mistrust in the workplace. Look for creative strategies to find the right people, funding, supplies, information and talents.

Myth #5

“Sometimes it’s best to shut up.”

Truth: A company is in trouble when it’s populated by yes-people who won’t take risks, share ideas or voice opinions. Speaking up can make your career.

Myth #6

“Getting ahead means getting noticed.”

Truth: Your work will naturally shine if you contribute to the overall team.

Myth #7

“You can train unengaged individuals to work together.”

Truth: Training (and in effect, forcing) individuals to cooperate as teams doesn’t work.

You make much more progress by first removing the layers of fear that make us believe we are separate. True and effective teaming becomes the natural result! There are other misleading beliefs and doubts leading to workplace mediocrity, back-stabbing, dissention and even corruption. It’s your choice to break free and be open to the possibility of a grander design. As we escape the boxes we have put ourselves and our organizations into, an amazing freedom to create is available. Performance becomes fun, exciting and drives itself. It is remarkable to watch as each organization steps into its authenticity. Workplace evolution is the key to innovative workplaces that attract the best talent!

By Gayle Gregory

Mental Health America’s (MHA) Live Your Life Well is filled with relevant tidbits to help us live well in these uncommon times. Each of ten tools is precise and capable of breaking through old, inadequate patterns to help us ride life’s rollercoaster with greater ease. Together they can create meaningful change – lasting and positive – for our lives.

Over the past 12 years I have come to understand what it is that works for and against us when it comes to change. Thanks to curiosity, not to mention a big helping of life’s hard knocks, I’ve accepted the notion that we are each our own problem and solution. At times it would have been easier to close my eyes and revert to less informed thinking, but once aware, there was no way to be unaware.

The concept of personal responsibility is well known but mostly unclaimed by the general population, and yet, it is the crux beneath meaningful change. In order to shift our reality, we must shift our belief system. In order to do that, we have to acknowledge responsibility for our reality. That means there are no more victims, there is no more blame, and projecting our pain onto others, also must stop. That’s a tall order. It means rewiring our automatic responses of self-protection and self focus and remembering something bigger, that we are hard-wired for community and are designed to be here, for and with each other.

MHA’s tool number one says, “Connect with others.” This tool alone can shift the balance towards real change. It is critical. It moves us beyond self-definition and begins to broaden our concept of inclusivity. It begins the transfer from ‘me’ to the ‘me we were meant to be’. It is a starting point to reclaiming our physical, emotional, spiritual and mental health. Meaningful change is the result of small steps. Every time we use one of the tools it begins a ripple in the pond of change. It may not seem like much at first, but that one small step creates a small tsunami that affects our entire well-being.

by Gayle Gregory

How we view our differences is a missing ingredient!

When you wake up in the morning are you excited to get to work?  As you shower are you already thinking about all the good work you are going to do that day?  Does your heart open in joy when you think about the camaraderie at work?  Do you tell your friends and acquaintances how great your job is and how wonderful it is to work there? Do you bring your all with you to work?  Or, do you leave parts of yourself behind?  How committed and engaged are you—really?

The primary valuation of a company is its people.  According to the Human Capital Institute only 25% to 55% of employees are engaged.  Committed employees are not only 25% more productive, adding to a company’s valuation, common sense says that they are also less likely to be surfing monster.com.  It’s interesting to note that 90% of managers believe that people leave because of money but the top three reasons people actually leave their jobs are a lack of challenging work, little opportunity to grow and develop, and poor management relationships.  So it seems, contrary to some opinions, people want to be engaged.

It is a question human resource managers have been struggling with for decades.  How do we create job satisfaction?  Better, more comprehensive questions would be, how do we help employees find delight, delight that’s foundational for satisfaction, productivity, full-on engagement and commitment?  In other words, how does the organization facilitate workplace evolution that feeds each employee’s sense of sheer delight, nurtures their passion, and makes them know they are blessed to be a part of such an amazing organization?

An organization’s response to these questions is critical to their unstoppability—their overall long and short-term viability.  70% of organizations say that they have an insufficient pipeline of talent for critical jobs.  According to 2007 CEO Briefing, attracting and retaining talented people is one of the top five issues facing organizations today.  The cost of working without just one key player is estimated at $7000 a day.  By 2010 it is projected that there will be a shortage of 10 Million employees in the United States alone because of several factors, boomer retirement, among them.  Even though 70% of organizations are already struggling to fill critical positions, the fight for talent is just heating up!  That’s good news for employees and on the surface, not so good for the organization.

Organizations that find the secret ingredient to cultivate full-on engagement and true delight in going to work each day will be able to cure multiple ills.  As they race to find the cure, many facets of organizational life have the opportunity to bloom.  When employees engage, productivity and delight naturally grow.  Engaged employees attract other individuals who desire to be productive and engaged.  It’s not surprising that studies show top talent tends to cluster together.  Delighted and engaged people are less at risk for stress and stress related illnesses (think medical savings), in fact, they understand that stress is self-inflicted and know better than to dampen their delight.

So what is it that delivers workplace delight besides an upcoming vacation?  One possible answer might surprise—our differences!  Differences are something we hide, something we work to overcome, and something at which we often inwardly cringe.  We find comfort in people just like us.  We cluster together naturally.  We find safety in us versus them.   But, our differences also supply the ‘juice’ that can energize an organization and life in its many facets.

How do we inspire delight in all employees, from the janitor to the CEO?  How do we get each one to take the internal steps toward self motivation, for that is the source of true and lasting delight?   It is the missing link, the secret ingredient that keeps people engaged and committed. The company cannot provide this internal spark, except (huge except) to provide the necessary coaching to inspire people to do this internal work.  The skeletons of past organizational attempts to create job satisfaction demonstrate this is true. Once the internal work has begun, it provides the internal framework, think of it as the real infrastructure of the company, a foundation that lives within the people and is shared between them. It is the basic step.

Coaching classes would include everyone within an organization, preferably done as a whole so people see, hear, relate, and find insights together. In this way, they start to bridge and break down differences. First, an understanding that we are in this boat together must be set. Yes, the boat is rocky and the waves steep amid all these differences, but from this awareness an organization can traverse the waters when we get in the boat together.

When we see ourselves as part of something larger than our individual self, as being together, can we begin to see the power in our differences. Until this point we are separate and different, individuals each requiring protection and defense. Once everyone is on board, diversity is bridged back in naturally. From a position of non-defense, we can recognize, embrace and see the unique value and purpose in each person’s natural style — what was previously seen as an irreconcilable difference.

In business, what is needed is a quick means for people to stop acting in-authentically, a system of self checks and balances. When employees identify their primary style and comprehend how to honor it, it is the turning point for organizations and creates a shift from fragmentation to integration. Honoring our primary style means that each person chooses to be authentic, to come from a place of wholeness rather than reverting to the fearful default regardless of situation or stress. We learn to hold our primary style around people of different styles and honor the differences in the process.

How do we create a fluid system where all are honored, allowed to ask questions, voice opinions, where no one is demeaned and the floor is held open?  We remove the fear that prevents us from holding the space for each other, in honor, in a system of equal exchange that promotes growth and new ideas. We find creative ways to praise authenticity rather than ideas perceived as valuable. This makes room for all ideas, ensuring that engagement doesn’t rest on that one big idea or on proving oneself and free people of the need to act outside of authenticity.

As we learn to honor each other, we create a productive, supportive work environment free of back-biting, gossip and sacrificed integrity. Instead we develop an environment where people end the stage show and come to work, not to put on a soap opera, a facade or mask, but come to work to work and play, simply by being who they are. We sweep the floor of the stacks of boxes we asked people to fit into to do their jobs.  We open the floor, clearing a path of non-judgment. New ideas, new connection, new commitment, new delight springs forth naturally. We set sail together, each knowing the role to play, each recognizing the value of others, and as one, the organization moves full speed ahead.

by Gayle Gregory

Don’t let today’s climate of fear take control of your workplace …

“I am tomorrow, or some future day, what I establish today. I am today what I established yesterday or some previous day.”  James Joyce

In today’s economy it is very easy to adopt beliefs that we normally wouldn’t entertain. We often do this without noticing that’s what we have done. Stop for a moment and see whether or not you are fearful, worrying about your financial future, or cutting back on investments in education, training, or in capital assets to grow your business and make your products or services  more sustainable. Is this behavior normal for you? If not, you might have absorbed the beliefs of the masses, the energy of fear that is permeating our world today.

It is a truly rare person who finds themselves unaffected by their exterior environment, able to see clearly and discern what is real and what is not. It usually takes years of self-understanding, created through deep and sometimes painful exploration, to build up immunity to the energy of mass belief. The possibility of unaffected decision-making is available though, to every organization and to each individual within, and the return on investment is immediate.  Immunity begins to build the moment we begin to conscientiously investigate our beliefs and grows with each new insight of what is, in fact, true.

Until we have done the personal work, it is impossible to view our outside environment without the influence of our internal beliefs and ideas. We all have our sets of beliefs, those ideas we have inherited from our parents and from society. Most of the beliefs are based in self-protection, making certain we are safe and secure. This is the primary directive of the amygdala.

“… the brain structure which appears to be at the very center of most of the brain events associated with fear is the amygdala (Greek for almond, its shape). The amygdala seems to respond to severe traumas with an un-erasable fear response.” www.psycheducation.org

While perhaps un-erasable, my experience is that the fear response is integrate-able and therefore, transformable. Fear only remains fearful because we fail to explore, to meet it head on. As we dare to engage the fear, we can learn from it and see the ideas that cloud our ability to broaden our vision and create a larger future for our organizations. If we choose to avoid it, it will control our responses and decisions, and decisions made within a foundation of self-protection, whether that be organizationally or for us individually, will always be short-sighted and have unintended consequences. Our current world situation and the decisions made by our financial institutions are cases in point.

Leaders who begin to understand and explore the ramifications will have an intense edge over those who do not. Vision and strategy, what we dare to dream for the future of our organizations, is directly affected by our beliefs. Execution of the strategy, as well, is controlled by the beliefs of the entire team from the landscaper to those occupying seats in the board room.  Communication, the common thread through every facet of business life, is as well. Our beliefs show up in the way we communicate, in the words we use, the physical clues to what we really want to say, and the other non-verbal, often non-conscious, aspect of beliefs that color what we dare communicate and how we communicate – passively, aggressively, directly, or indirectly. It works from both directions, in what we are willing to say as well as how we hear what another person says. We can only communicate in our hearing and speaking, what we believe to be possible. And that is directly determined by our level of fear. We do not hear or see what is outside of our beliefs. This is so deeply entrenched that scientists created double and triple-blind testing because they knew they wouldn’t see what they didn’t believe to be possible.

Begin to pay attention to your thinking. Watch your reaction to the newspaper headlines. Listen to the talk around the board-room table and begin to discern if people are playing not to lose. Stop long enough to understand if you and your team are in control of your organization’s future or whether something else is. Clear out the cobwebs of belief and dream big. Learn to move forward fearlessly. At the least, slow down long enough to see your fears clearly and free-up your decision making. Or, get out of the way of those willing to do so. Our workplaces, and society as a whole, depend on today’s leaders more now than ever.

By Gayle Gregory

Seeing our thoughts crystallize into form!

Bring me brilliant, creative, succulent ideas.
Help me rendezvous with kindred spirits who are in integrity,
as we enthusiastically co-create together and are deliciously aligned.
Help me be aware of my power.
Guide me to thoughts that are in harmony with my core desires.
Bring me evidence of how this all works in comfortable, humorous and delicious ways.
Magnetizing Your Heart’s Desire by Sharon A. Warren

Some days are amazing gifts.  Today was one of them!   This morning’s call with the founding partners of our organizational consulting business, Workplace Evolution, was a remarkable think-tank.  It didn’t start out with that intention but that’s what occurred. As we talked about emerging trends—what will soon be the new business paradigms—magic stepped into the conversation.

Prior to the economic meltdown, statistics pointed to an upcoming labor shortage. Stats said that in ten years the U.S. business community would find themselves short 10 million employees with the retirement of the Boomers and the birth-dearth of the following generation. Quite a number … even if, owing to finances, less of us actually retire! If we stay and work simply because of money, a different scenario emerges that will require creative and innovative management to activate employee passion and productivity. It’s staggering when the implications are understood…regardless of which scenario plays out. Businesses that evolve and learn how to engage the whole individual will get to pass on the going out of business sale.  They will be able to attract, retain and cultivate talent. Our founder’s conversation today dealt with how employee’s options will change.

The energy of the conversation was light and open to possibility.  We each honored our collective visioning process as well as the unique perspective and experience each one of us brings to our dialogues. Ideas, based on a single observation, quickly expanded into insights none of us alone could have imagined.

The influence of Generation X and Y will be dramatic. This generation of workers will at last demand work-life balance and have it in their power to see it become reality.  Many of these internet-reared individuals see the potential for balance in contract work, no fear of, rather an ability to embrace and seek out month(s) long breaks, the possibilities presented by technology for long-distance work situations and with that, the various means for creative workspace and time.  These workers walk to a different drummer than the one to which their parents walked.  With the sheer power of absent numbers, they will be able to rewrite the rules of business. This trend is already beginning to take shape amongst women executives who have left their jobs, knowing there had to be something better than this.  These women left in hope that meaning and purpose existed out there somewhere and had the personal confidence to go in search of it.

It was synergy at its finest, but not the magic I alluded to in the first paragraph.  That was to come later.  The conversation was one of those meetings of mind and heart that you don’t want to stop, regardless of time and schedules.  You aren’t having it—it is having you!  In the business world, it would be called a rare moment.  For us, it is normal, not expected, but a natural outcome of our connectivity and unity.  Conversations become communion and through communion move into the spaciousness of natural flow.  We hold the space for just that to occur on a regular day-to-day basis. That is how we continue to evolve in our work together, how we attract clients capable of hearing this new paradigm and how we each commit to living our lives.  We make room each moment for the miraculous to occur, recognizing that what most call miraculous is how all of life can work—effortless, inspired, connected.

As our conversation began to wind down, having completed its natural rhythm, the magic occurred. It was so amazing that I didn’t realize, until afterwards, what had just transpired.  When you do this work, Source begins to communicate with you from a different place, with new, uncommon words and symbols.  It doesn’t come from a place of mind.  It just appears with absolute knowingness that this is so.  We had been talking about finding the right clients to share our work with and show how much fun they can have playing and working in the flow.  As we talked I felt a wide-energetic field that quickly narrowed into the point of an arrow, an arrow that was swiftly moving into the physical plane.  The picture that simultaneously accompanied it was of jumping onto the shaft of the arrow and riding it into its full expression on earth. Our thoughts about the perfect clients had narrowed into physical reality and were about to be born. Nothing more was required.

I had been blessed to see thought crystallize as reality.  It was an awe-inspiring experience. I have known for a long time, intellectually and emotionally, how to manifest on this plane.  With this experience, it moved from intellect to an energetic cellular knowing.   Our thoughts truly do become our reality.   The importance of my work, and our work together, of helping people clearly see their thoughts and fears, was driven home with the pulsing energetic breath of Creative Force.