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Roland made no bones about
the fact that he hated our
coaching. He introduced me to
people on his staff as his
torturer, his devil, The Grand
Pest, and Annoyer
Extraordinaire. But he never
canceled an appointment or
showed up one minute late. Like
an accident survivor committed
to painful physical therapy,
Roland endured me like a dose of
foul medicine.
Roland’s attitude didn’t
surprise me. A rising superstar
in his organization, he wasn’t
used to feeling incompetent, but
the work we were doing together
was making him feel just that.
However I also noticed that
Roland often left our workouts
exhilarated.
The cause of all the fuss was
Roland’s habit of beginning
every thought, every comment,
every answer, with a hearty,
“Well!” Barry, his boss, told me
his staff made it an openly
secret sport to count the number
of times Roland said the word
during meetings. “He’s never
going to hit his potential if he
can’t stop this,” Barry told me.
To eliminate this verbal tic,
Roland was going to go through
the same process that other
clients go through to eliminate
explosive emotional behaviors.
Or an inability to listen. Or
extreme introversion. The
process, discussed in the Tip,
How Behaviors Change,
incorporates awareness first,
then acknowledgement of
incremental success.
I told Roland that in order to
build his awareness I would snap
my fingers every time he said
“Well!” Nothing else; I would
simply snap. In short order,
this instantaneous feedback made
him so self-conscious his speech
began to unravel. Being a
well-spoken Brit, he found this
short-circuiting in his brain
distressing. “This simply won’t
do!” he declared in alarm. “If
eliminating my ‘Well!’ means I’m
going to turn into a stammering
idiot, I’ll keep the ‘Well!’ and
suffer the consequences.”
I empathized with Roland. His
brain simply couldn’t do all the
things he was asking it to do.
He had reached his capacity: his
performance was actually
declining. Even though I knew
this stage was temporary I
understood his frustration.
I asked him if he had ever
performed in plays when he was
in school. He seemed puzzled by
the question and told me that,
no, he hadn’t. I told him I’d
been a professional performer
for more than twenty years and
that this process of decreased
excellence that was so
frustrating to him was extremely
familiar to me.
Plays are rehearsed in stages.
In the beginning, actors are “on
book,” meaning they carry their
scripts as they walk through
their movements. In a while,
they gain competence and can
move through entire scenes with
barely a glance at their script.
But the instant they actually
put the script down, everything
falls apart. Lines they knew by
rote suddenly vanish from
memory. Movements they’ve done
repeatedly without effort
suddenly become paralyzing.
“We forget,” I told him, “how
very difficult it is to
integrate new learning.”
“That’s all well and good,” he
said, “but you and your fellows
got to fall apart in the privacy
of your rehearsals. I don’t have
that luxury.”
“That’s true. You don’t,” I
said. “Which is why I encourage
you to try out this new behavior
selectively. Choose low-risk
settings. Pick times when you
know your content really well.
Or when you’re completely
comfortable with your audience.
That way your brain will have
extra capacity so it can focus
on eliminating ‘Well!’ It’s
really important to try this
when there’s not a lot at
stake.”
“I should think so!” he said
ruefully.
“Besides,” I said, “if you tried
doing it in a high-stress
situation, your brain would be
so busy you wouldn’t be able to
focus on it anyway. The point
here is that you can choose when
you are going to focus on
integrating that new behavior.
And you should expect
your performance to take a dip.
That’s how learning happens.”
“Well!” he said.
I snapped.
“Oh, damn you!” He smiled. “What
I was going to say is that if
that’s how learning happens,
then I may have been a bit harsh
with some of my newer staff
members.”
He paused. I watched him
formulate a thought. He was
about to speak but stopped. He
grinned. “I was going to say
‘Well!’ but I didn’t.” I could
tell he was proud of himself.
Then, thoughtfully, he added,
“To be honest, I don’t know when
my brain has gotten such a
workout.”
That very day, I heard Uma
Thurman, the star of Kill
Bill, Parts 1 & 2,
interviewed on “Fresh Air” with
Terry Gross. Thurman described
having to learn martial arts for
her role and how her masters
pushed her limits, not just
physically but mentally. She
said:
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When you have to learn
something from the very
beginning, it’s humbling
because you have to go into
that place where you
struggle, where you can’t do
[it], where you’re hurting
and humiliated. In this case
of Kill Bill, every
time I could do one thing,
they gave me another thing
to do, so it was just a
constant process of struggle
and learning…and you know,
it really…it just changes
your brain. I think they
made my brain younger for a
while because my brain just
had to become razor sharp
again. |
Roland pushed himself past the
dip in his performance. He began
to gain conscious competence
over his “Well!” not only in our
private sessions but also in
certain low-risk situations.
No matter what behaviors you’re
striving to gain mastery over,
expect to go through what Roland
(and Thurman) went through. You
will take a dip, but you’ll come
out of it more confident.
Perhaps even younger! That’s the
only path that leads to The Look & Sound of Leadership™.
Read related Tips:
Act "As If"
How Behaviors Change
Leadership & Self-Deception
Smiling—The Look of Leadership?
Stop Giving Away Your Secrets |
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