Here’s a visual: Child throws a temper tantrum. Tries to hit his mother. But the mother doesn’t hit back, lecture or punish. Instead, she ducks. Then she tries to go about her business as if the tantrum isn’t happening. She doesn’t “reward” the tantrum. She simply doesn’t take the tantrum personally because, after all, it’s not about her.

via Modern Love – Those Aren’t Fighting Words, Dear – NYTimes.com.

Great article.  Though specifically about a woman whose husband tells her he wants to leave her, the larger theme of her response is excellent:  engaging in and getting riled up by someone’s attack or tantrum only encourages it to continue.

I’ve found an effective way to ‘win’ in such a situation is to stay calm and respond with reason, empathy, and giving some time or distance for the person to calm down.  Then, the situation hasn’t escalated, you have negated their schema/paradigm of conflict, and may then end with more respect for each other and a better working relationship.

The often instinctual and emotional response of getting upset and ‘buying or engaging in the other person’s charge’ rarely works.  As the author writes, “It’s not about [you]“, so don’t get yourself upset, as well.

In putting together my personal leadership development plan for a class, I read James C. Collins and Jerry I. Porras, Building your Company’s Vision, HBR September-October 1996.   Follows is a summary of what I learned:

An organization should know the following:
Core Ideology- its character e.g. ethics. It is composed of the Core Values and Core Purpose.
Core Values- its tenets, e.g. customer service.  Core Values do not change in even 100 years, as opposed to operating practices which do change. Core Values are kept even if they penalize the company. An organization should have 3-5 core values, which is not to say it does not have other values, but that these will last.  An organization should be able to identify a Mars Group of 5-7 that live its core values. The name refers to people the organization would figuratively send to Mars to start a branch with the same Core Values of the organization.
Core Purpose- its reason for being, its motivation, e.g. to make a contribution to society. It is something over the long term.

The Core Ideology is something the organization must discover about itself. It cannot be imposed.  It should not be confused with Core Competence, which is something the organization is good at, e.g. miniaturization.

Envisioned Future: a 10-30 year audacious goal with a vivid description and BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal), i.e. a daunting challenge with a concrete finish line.  The BHAG is a goal, but not a purpose

In clarifying the function of the BHAG, Collins and Porras ask: “Did Beethoven create the right Ninth Symphony? Did Shakespeare create the right Hamlet… The envisioned future involves such essential questions as Does it get our juices flowing? Do we find it stimulating? Does it spur forward momentum? Does it get people going?”  That is, it is more about motivating the organization towards the goal than a specific result.

They also caution:  “Start-up companies frequently suffer from the We’ve Arrived Syndrome after going public or after reaching a stage in which survival no longer seems in question.”  This is an important point– achieving a BHAG means that another one must be set or else the organization will lapse into mediocrity or worse.

In applying this to myself, or the individual in general, it becomes clear that we must separate the BHAG of wheat from the chaff of day-to-day concerns.  We should identify what truly motivates us to work, excel, succeed, and be happy and content.  We should identify what values we have they we will stick to no matter what.  We should then set a difficult, but reachable goal of where we want to be in 5,10, or 30 years and plan out the action steps of how we will arrive there.  And this process of identifying a BHAG and working towards it should be dynamic and constant.

When given a disappointing situation, there is more than one way to think about it, and hence, more than one way to feel about it and react to it. Rather than thinking about it negatively and feeling angry, I can, while still being disappointed, accept that I can’t always get what I want or that people can’t always live up to my expectations, embrace those limitations, and feel good about it.

Of course, that’s easier said than done, but the trick is to recognize that moment in the situation when my thoughts may automatically think negative, and then stop and think of the positive or more-balanced thought, and embrace that.

In my leadership class, a requirement for my Master’s program, we recently learned about how narrative storytelling can be used as a leadership or management tool. The trick is that the story should engage the mind of the listener not to entertain, but to instill some point. This is done by controlling the level of detail of the different narrative elements so that only the parts relevant to the lesson are focused upon.

For example, Steve Denning told a story to employees of the World Bank of how a doctor in Zambia found much-needed information about Malaria treatment by going to the Center for Disease Control website. He argued, shouldn’t the World Bank similarly make its knowledge-expertise available?

The story could have been filled with details of the doctor’s travails, but as the only important parallel to be drawn from the story is that making the information web-accessible, the other details are left up to the listener to imagine or not.