I’ve worked alongside my husband, Todd, since 1997, and believe the principles we’ve developed to thrive during our work day have enriched our marriage. I hope incorporating these practical lessons will cause you to look back on this season and see it as a springboard for a healthier relationship.

1. Determine house rules: Do we work after dinner? Do we talk about work before morning coffee? Do we bring computers and files into the bedroom? Expectations are like pre-meditated resentments, so the more we communicate what is important, the healthier our day goes.

2. Support work flow, by not interrupting each other. Todd and I each have a list that accumulates our thoughts and questions throughout the day. That way we can address them later without distracting each other in the moment.

3. Don’t offer feedback unless asked. It’s easy to want to weigh in on something you overhear, but without knowing the history, the people, or the nuance of the circumstance, your feedback might discourage progress, instead of offering a new perspective.

4. Make a plan the night before so shared responsibilities, like childcare or meal prep, are clear before the day begins.

5. When your partner is angry, recognize anger is a secondary emotion, often sitting on top of fear and frustration. Be a sounding board, ask clarifying questions, listen, and give freedom for them to take a break without judgment. Your response, rather than reaction, to their negative emotion might be the key to turning around their day.

6. Stay interdependent. It can be tempting to be independent, and do our own thing throughout the day. But that requires an abrupt transition when later, in the same space, with the same person, we are supposed to be emotionally and relationally connected. Equally as harmful is co-dependence, where my feelings about the day are tied to yours. Between independent and co-dependent is the much healthier interdependent, which allows for individual responsibilities and agendas, while maintaining the shared goal of communication and concern for the other.

7. Work to keep interactions from being transactional. We are used to having conversations at the office coffee station, or asking a colleague about their plans. In this season of working alongside one another, don’t forget to be relational and supportive: cheer on their progress and be curious about their interests.

8. Practice immediacy. When there is conflict, we are tempted to think we only have two options: fight or reconcile, but in the middle of a busy work day there isn’t always the luxury of time to talk things through. Immediacy is the skill of maintaining the relationship while there are differences, and is actually more important than solving the conflict itself. It’s knowing we might have more to hash out, but in the meantime, we respect each other enough to not jeopardize the relationship or hijack their workday. After a rough day or feeling like there is lingering frustration, be sure to say, “I know we’ve had some hard conversation. You’re more important than whatever that was about. Are we ok?”

9. Look for opportunities to serve one another. That might mean taking a call outside, or getting the other a drink when we are up, or running to the printer for the other. The more pleasant and others-centered we are, the less tense the work environment.

10. Take a break. There is a cost to working in a shared space, but there’s also a benefit. Exploit that benefit by sneaking in some moments to play, eat, be intimate, and all around recreate, in the middle of a busy day, in a busy season, in a time of unknown. When you look back at this, you’ll want to remember how you enjoyed working back-to-back.

We don’t know how long this will last, but just as it’s giving us an opportunity to re-evaluate our exercise habits, spending habits, organization and eating, it could also be the best thing to happen to our relationships, as we create a rhythm in the household we want to wake up in- not only now, but also when this crisis passes.

Editors Note: Real Leaders is making its archive of magazines freely available to all visitors to our website as part of our contribution to the Covid-19 pandemic. We believe you’ll emerge stronger and wiser when this crisis passes, and we hope our stories will keep you entertained and inspired while we sit out this challenging time. Sign up here and you’ll be instantly redirected to our archive.

Years ago, I met a six-year-old who would become one of my greatest teachers. “Melissa” showed me what real leadership is all about.

Back then, I volunteered at a rehabilitation facility in Morristown, NJ, assisting a gifted physical therapist in a heated pool while she used the warm water to stretch the muscles of children challenged with cerebral palsy and other muscular disorders. When Melissa arrived for the last session of the day, I remember her waiting patiently for her turn in the pool. Her calm demeanor and watchful eyes caught my attention. She remained still as she seemed to be quietly taking everything in. But when we got her in the pool, her energy shifted at the same time as her smile lit up the room.

When we started the session, she displayed a discipline and focus on her task that matched any of the best leaders I had ever known. She had clarity about her one goal—she wanted to extend both arms together to enable her hands to grasp a small sponge basketball, drop it in a floating net, and score two points. At first, both of her hands were rigidly held close to her shoulders. During her first session, we were able to get just one arm to relax—and it moved only a few inches. She was determined, but patient. Melissa gave it 100%, but this was going to be a long process.

In subsequent weeks, I looked forward to Melissa’s session. Of our many times in the pool together, I particularly remember the impact she had on me when she spoke. Her words were always positive, and she seemed to use them to help create her future.

I also remember how others were affected by Melissa. We all watched as Melissa entered the water with that same enthusiasm every time. Staff would stop to peek in to see her progress. Her passion and zest were contagious—she influenced everyone around her.

It took Melissa nearly six months to reach her goal. When she finally succeeded, she let out a cry of joy that I can still hear to this day. She reminded me that those with disabilities have amazing abilities to share with those of us whose challenges aren’t as visible. She is what I refer to as a Chief.

Melissa served as a role model in so many ways. She sure helped me, even when I started with the belief that I was there to serve her. She reminded me that real power has nothing to do with your title or position. It’s focused on influence, clarity, energy, confidence, and impact.

In the second edition of Be Chief: It’s a Choice, Not a Title, I share tips and tools to help anyone understand, measure, increase, and spread real power. And in Melissa’s honor, I’m donating 100% of the author proceeds to Easterseals in support of their mission to help everyone become Chiefs.

Editors Note: Real Leaders is making its archive of magazines freely available to all visitors to our website as part of our contribution to the Covid-19 pandemic. We believe you’ll emerge stronger and wiser when this crisis passes, and we hope our stories will keep you entertained and inspired while we sit out this challenging time. Sign up here and you’ll be instantly redirected to our archive.

Dr. Daniel Siegel, psychiatrist and author, defines trauma as anything that overwhelms the capacity to cope. We know an ever-changing world, with the unknown and lack of routine, may trigger employees who have experienced past trauma, and may trigger the children within their homes. How can we help them not only manage their remote working logistics, but also the emotional toll this crisis extracts? 

Children take cues from the adults in their life on how to cope with their environment. This establishes co-regulation and, over time, builds a child’s ability to self-regulate. Self-regulation allows a child to manage emotion, control impulses, recover from distress, and maintain attention and focus without the help of another person. However, when someone has experienced trauma — like what is happening all around the world right now — there is a heightened response to distress and a tendency towards dysregulation. 

Because you desire a healthy home in which employees can rest and remain productive, consider sharing these trauma-informed principles to guide them in leading their households through COVID-19. When we are intentional and address the emotional needs of others, we can be a non-anxious presence!

• Stress weakens our immune system, making us more susceptible to illness. In the midst of all our hand-washing, we can pay attention to the tone of our voices and the condition of our hearts, asking ourselves: Am I taking care of myself? Am I adding to, or reducing, the levels of the stress in my home? 

• A dehydrated brain is an irritated brain. Drinking water is a great way to flush our system and is an infection-preventing practice.  We also know hydration is an effective intervention for aggression. Am I paying attention to how much water I am drinking? 

• Connection helps regulate emotions. This is a great opportunity to use discretionary time and establish connection with close friends and family. Am I looking more at the people I live with, or at a screen? How well am I listening to their concerns and ideas? 

• Families stick together. Let children know if one person in your household is sick, they won’t be alone. Isolation can be an emotional trigger for both children and adults, so “social distancing” and “quarantine” are words that might produce anxiety. When left without a plan, children write their own narratives. Having a strategy for what happens if someone does get sick, will go a long way towards minimizing stress. 

• A regulated parent helps inform a child’s response in any new and unsure circumstance. Staying calm when talking about the situation is critical.  When the adult has big feelings, the children follow, so ask yourself: When my emotions are out of control and I feel dysregulated, what can I do? Who can I share them with safely? What information do I need? What is my own pathway to regulation? 

• Maintaining routine increases felt safety. We need to do all we can to keep activities predictable, so adults and children sense stability. Have a plan for the day, and communicate it the night before, so everyone can “wake up and know” the expectation. Even simple details like meal planning will give the day a sense of certainty. 

• Carefully explain changes. Make sure children have warning and explanation on what to expect, whether it’s about school, vacation, or childcare. The situation is rapidly changing and all the uncertainty can cause even otherwise emotionally healthy children to feel insecure. Answer their questions, give them time to grieve what they are missing, and infuse your language with a gratitude that what you are experiencing, you are experiencing together. 

• Be fully present and actively listen to one another. It’s important to take the time to hear your household’s concerns and answer their questions with developmentally appropriate answers. We know from science, that being heard by someone who has given you their full attention, and is without judgement, is profoundly healing.  This is one significant way we can redeem all the time this outbreak has robbed from us: if we come out on the other end being better listeners and feeling heard, we will be healthier for it. 

• Limit your children’s viewing of the media coverage. Children may not understand what they see or hear, so let their information come from you.  It’s tempting to watch news coverage throughout the day, but there’s a difference between hearing something an authority is disseminating and something an “expert” is expressing. There are lots of experts being interviewed about how, what, when and where this will impact us next. Sorting through all the information overload can increase stress in the household. Determine what is healthy for your family, and limit what is consumed. 

•  Offer your family choices. At a time when some things in life may feel out of our control, offering our family members choices can help. What should we have for dinner?  Do you want to eat it at the table or picnic style in the living room? Do you want to take a walk, or a drive, or a bike ride? 

This is a season when we are learning nationally how critical “we” is over “me.” We are making choices for the greater good: we are sacrificing so everyone is safer. It would be a waste to stretch those muscles for the benefit of those outside our home and then ignore the needs of those most important to us. This virus is costing a lot. We should demand something of value in return, which is empathy for others, connection with family, an outward focus.  

These are gifts we can appreciate for the rest of our lives, long after COVID-19 has become a memory

Creativity and the unconscious are not magic. Almost all thinking operates in the unconscious — including taking out the garbage, tying our shoestrings, or driving our car. You can’t do any of this if you are unconscious, but your subconscious mind can control these actions.

Creativity is sometimes misunderstood and placed low on a company agenda. But sometimes, the cheapest place to get better (more profitable) ideas is to stimulate creativity and innovation inside your organization.

01 Creative Leaders Have Modest Intelligence

In summarizing the personal characteristics of creative thinkers, renowned Italian psychiatrist, Silvano Arieti, concluded that they must be intelligent. The paradox is that they generally are not too intelligent. Excessive intelligence cripples creativity by imposing an examination of self and ideas that is too strict, too “logical.”

02 Creative Leaders See Opportunity In Mistakes

A rat uses its errors to help find its way through a maze. In a similar but more sophisticated way, creative thinkers must be assisted by their leaders and colleagues to recognize and use their thinking errors as they grope with the creative solution to a problem. In scientific and technical arenas of thought, mistakes can be quite useful in posing issues in a new way and in inviting unique approaches to a problem.

03 Creative Leaders Ask (The Right) Questions

A question calls forth an answer; a problem, its solution. The trick is not only to ask questions but to ask questions or pose problems in the most effective ways. A question can easily limit creative thinking if it restricts the space of potential answers. It’s therefore essential to raise questions in open-ended ways, and ways that do not make too many assumptions about an acceptable answer. A significant part of the creativity task is the proper formulation of the problem itself.

04 Creative Leaders Are Prepared to be Creative

What this means is that creative people have a mindset that enables creativity to happen, as if by chance. We have all heard the famous axiom: “Chance favors the prepared mind.” But the complete explanation is: “Accident arises out of purpose. The essence of invention isn’t process, but purpose.” In other words, creative people, desire to be creative, believe that there is a creative solution, and expect that they will be the ones to find it.

05 Creative Leaders Are Original Thinkers

Original thinking is not the same as creativity but is a prerequisite for creative thought. Originality requires an active search for the different. This may involve deliberate attempts to conjure contrasts, opposites, bizarre associations, and symbolic thinking. Original thinking is sometimes no more than merely recognizing that what is accepted by everybody else has flaws, is not adequate, or needs to be done differently. Creative leaders tend to search longer for original thoughts that can improve upon or even replace emerging ideas.

06 Creative Leaders Keep People From Getting Too Specialized

Overspecialization gets in the way of creative thought. A research team with people of diverse backgrounds creates a stimulating intellectual environment that can promote the evaluation of problems from a broader perspective and lead to new ways of seeing problems and solutions. Many projects require a diversity of technical skills, which is provided in a diversely structured team.

07 Creative Leaders Tolerate Mavericks — Even Value Them

By definition, creative people are more likely to be non-conformist, not only in their thinking but sometimes in their attitudes and behavior. If such people are valued in an organization for what their ideas can do for the group, then a certain amount of tolerance for unconventional behavior is the price that has to be paid. Sometimes creative, innovative people are uncomfortably aggressive. They may be driven by ambition and are not very tolerant of obstacles, be they material or managerial. “Best workers gripe the most” was the conclusion drawn by one analyst of a survey of industrial productivity.

Born with a rare form of dwarfism, Michele Sullivan has spent her life looking up. As the first female president of the Caterpillar Foundation, she uses her unique point of view to impact countless lives around the world. Here, she recounts her early strategies and how the responsibility of finding millions of dollars to give to worthy causes has given her valuable life lessons.

One of my first orders of business at the foundation was reframing the way we operated. I knew it would cause quite a stir, but now that the role was mine, I was going to make some changes. The foundation board, my team, and I, set an aspirational goal to impact the lives of 50 million people living in poverty within eight years. That meant different things to different people. To me, it meant life change, seeing families no longer living in the poverty that had plagued them for generations. It meant seeing children in school and graduating into a job that allowed them to provide for their families. It meant building wells in desperate areas, and also ensuring that the girls who spent each day gathering water became educated, too. It meant that communities who used the wells became healthier and that children no longer died from waterborne disease.

I needed a way to track this impact. My math brain went full scale. I spent the first few months observing how things operated. I wanted to understand the elements that worked and uncover areas where we could improve. More than anything, I wanted to know where I could best serve the foundation’s mission to impact the lives of those in poverty. It’s easy to assume a company like Caterpillar has unlimited resources. While the company has a lot to give from a financial standpoint, the two critical resources money can’t buy are the right vision and the right partnerships. I needed individuals with viewpoints that compelled them to work with us and to carry out the work that needed to be done.

My primary role as president was determining the strategy for investing millions in grant money every year to create sustainable change in individual lives. I took maximizing every single dollar very seriously. In 2012, I rolled out a new operational strategy for the foundation that fundamentally changed how we measured ROI. Typically, foundations and their grantees measure returns by output — for example, how many schools were built or how many microloans were issued. While this certainly measures the productivity of a foundation and isn’t irrelevant, I don’t believe it measures actual, long-term impact. I wanted our foundation to always have a sense of what grants had the most significant impact and how many lives were truly elevated by our investments. This entailed creating a metric to track details such as how many recipients of microloans broke their family’s cycle of poverty. Knowing that sort of data would tell us how much impact we were having. 

This new strategy meant new grantee reporting rules around the measurement of outcome, instead of output. It was a stark change for many of them. Dozens of calls, letters, and emails came in from nonprofits which were not accustomed to the change. Our team worked with these organizations to help them create the right metrics. Eventually, their perspectives changed when their ability to prove that impact was happening opened up additional funding from sources that required this data.

Essentially, I wanted to know if we were defeating poverty and, if not, what needed to change? What more did we need to see or understand? Through hands-on research, asking lots of questions, and spending time with both our grantees and the individuals they were helping, it became clear that as the woman goes, so goes the family. If women are documented from birth, educated, given support for their businesses, and married after becoming an adult, their chances of success are exponentially higher, and their family follows suit. With this knowledge, we created a proprietary collaborative platform known as Together. Stronger. 

Its name reveals the core initiative: ToGetHer Stronger. The objective became a pillar of our investments and emphasized monetary accountability — dollar-to-impact behavior — and strategic alliances across public, private, and nonprofit sectors. I knew we couldn’t see and help 50 million people alone. Our partners make the impact.

One year after I took over, we contributed a grant to Water.org to expand its microfinance program, WaterCredit, which allows families in poverty to borrow money to purchase toilets or get clean water piped to their homes. The initial effect was that the number of people who gained access to clean water jumped to 3.2 million. We didn’t stop there. We connected Water.org with Opportunity International, one of our other partners, to increase capital to provide more WaterCredit loans.

The vision to bring water to all these desperate people wasn’t mine. It was the vision of actor Matt Damon and Gary White. It wasn’t my vision to provide microloans to help people start farms and businesses and meet basic needs. That was the vision of Al Whittaker, former president of Bristol-Myers International Corporation, and Australian entrepreneur David Bussau. It wasn’t even my vision to build the world’s largest construction equipment manufacturer. I just work there. But I knew how to look up to people. Together with a few others who also knew how, we were able to bring about exponential change well beyond the number of people our individual visions could reach. 

Today, Water.org has helped 17 million people access clean water. Opportunity International has provided financial products to nearly 15 million people in 20 countries. For our vision to have its most significant impact, we have to trade credit and recognition for collaboration. Looking up to others is, after all, about others. It’s not about us.

The change in approach was never about bureaucracy or introducing more red tape into the process. It certainly wasn’t about control. It was about the need to stop generalizing our approach to how we help people. It was also about introducing accountability into our efforts, so that seeing people in bad circumstances doesn’t end with just feeling empathy. It was ultimately about stewardship of vision — making the best use of the insight we’d been given into multiple lives — male or female, a retired white American attorney, or a single African-American mother. Many people have modeled this conviction around stewardship for me over the years, but my mom is at the top of the list. She continues to see me and step in to see with me. I don’t think she’s ever considered how much her insight into my life became one of the dominoes from which my future progress has flowed — since I was a little girl born with dwarfism and big dreams.

This is an excerpt from Michele L. Sullivan’s new book, Looking Up: How a Different Perspective Turns Obstacles Into Advantages.

A trip to Tibet in 2009 changed the life of Shiyin Cai forever. The YPO member and current CEO of her family’s portfolio of Chinese art museums and boutique hotels, Cai grew up in an entrepreneurial family, attended the best schools in China and the United States, and was climbing the corporate ladder at GE — and then her eyes were opened.

“I was brought up in a very traditional way in China,” says Shiyin Cai. “I did what was expected. But, I was always wondering what my real value is, if I was making a difference in the world.” On that trip to Tibet, she visited a school for the blind and was struck by the fact that despite being blind and surviving on very little income, the children were full of joy.

“I was surrounded by children who were, by far, the happiest children I’d ever met, even though they had about 70 cents per day for their living expenses,” muses Cai. She says it was then she realized her values were not about how much money she could earn or how high she could climb in society and her career, but what she really valued was how much difference she could make in other people’s lives.

She abruptly ended her travels and went to work as a volunteer at a vocational school for the blind. “That was the start of my whole journey; that’s when I started devoting myself to blind children,” explains Cai. “The biggest challenge for blind people is not the physical disability; they can overcome that. What they cannot overcome is society’s stereotypes about what they can do.”

The problem haunted her, she says, until she found a solution after attending a special exhibit, Dialogue in the Dark, when visiting a friend in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Dialogue in the Dark is an international organization offering sighted people the opportunity to experience blindness, introducing them to how they can use their other senses as they go about their usual routine.

As part of the exhibit, Cai spent 75 minutes in total darkness. The experience helped her see the solution is not to change blind people, but to change sighted people’s views of blind people’s abilities.

Cai was particularly drawn to Dialogue in the Dark’s business model as a social enterprise rather than an NGO. “I had been in the business world for almost 12 years and was always looking for a sustainable way of doing good. Dialogue in the Dark is self-sustainable. I figured I could use all my business knowledge and experience to maximize my impact.”

She went to work for Dialogue in the Dark’s corporate office in Hamburg, Germany, serving as its COO, before returning to her homeland, bringing the franchise to Shanghai in 2011, followed by Chengdu, Beijing, Shenzhen, and Nanjing. One of the services she offers through Dialogue in the Dark China is leadership training. Groups of leaders enter a pitch-dark room with blind guides, are organized into teams, and given tasks to complete.
“What makes this very different from the other training is we don’t tell you what you should do,” Cai says. “You look inward instead of outward. Most of us, when we make mistakes, we blame external factors, but the dark experience forces you to look at yourself. You realize maybe that person didn’t understand, not because he is not smart, but because you didn’t explain it in a way he can understand. It drives empathy, communication skills, listening skills.”

Dialogue in the Dark China has trained more than 500 companies. “My biggest accomplishment is to witness people change in half a day. It is difficult for leaders to be aware of their own problems and to be willing to change. So, this is exciting,” Cai reveals.

She adds that diversity makes a company stronger and a leader better. “When you are a leader, you want a team of people with different opinions from you. If everybody has the same opinion, then why do you need a team? Most of the time, we are blind, even when we can see. Our visually impaired employees show us things we don’t see. This is why we always say that we need to let blind people teach us how to see.”

There are five key relationships that require your attention if you want to thrive as a leader: time, money, the self, friendships, and the unknown. How you manage these relationships dictates your well-being. Leaders make decisions that impact the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of other people. That’s a huge responsibility.

Learning to manage these five key relationships from a place of trust instead of fear will decrease your stress and anxiety, improve your well-being, and enable you to make the best decisions for yourself and your team.

No matter where you are on the leadership spectrum, you can wake up to a new way of leading. Mindfulness is not reserved for the chosen few. It’s a skill you can learn and practice daily. Doing so will transform the way you relate to your thoughts, emotions, coworkers, and the difficulties of life. When you stay present, you can see what’s happening, talk to yourself about how you’re relating, and bring yourself back to the facts.

You have the power to choose how you respond. You can manage your relationships with time, money, the self, friendships, and the unknown from a place of trust. As a result, you will lead more effectively and with less suffering for yourself and others.

1. Time

We go after the short-term solution rather than what is most beneficial in the long run. Author and educator Stephen Covey talks about this idea and how we spend time on things that seem urgent (e.g., answering the phone when we’re in the middle of a conversation, responding to a text while we are driving with our kids in the car), but are mostly unimportant. Instead, he suggests that we focus on what is most important: building relationships, exercising, and getting plenty of sleep. When we are constricted around the idea of time, everything seems important and urgent. The first step is to take responsibility for your relationship with time. This is a choice. Moment by moment, you need to pay attention to how you’re relating to time.

2. Money

Valuing our time in relation to money is tricky. It’s easier to measure the value of $10,000 than an extra 30 or 60 minutes. However, when we realize that how we use our time impacts our well-being, we can more easily see the value of paying for a service that will free time for stargazing or mountain climbing or whatever gives us joy and positive emotion.

Many leaders come to me bewildered by the stark reality that they have worked many years to earn a lot of money only to find themselves no happier, and, oftentimes, less happy than they have ever been. Gratefulness is one of the keys to unhooking yourself from a fear-based relationship to money. Be grateful for the resources you have right now because right now is all there is. Focus on what you have available in the present, not what you’re missing or what you think you won’t have in the future. When we’re not grateful, it seems like nothing will meet our needs. Everything is a black hole, so we keep striving for more.

3. The Self

We all see ourselves a certain way and are reluctant to change, even when that way creates a lot of suffering for ourselves and others. It takes great courage, an ability to pay attention, and a willingness to let go to begin to choose something different. This is the moment of waking up. 

Gaining a flexible sense of self starts with paying attention. First, we need to notice when we slip into thinking the self is permanent. Notice when you start focusing on my project, my team, and my money. Notice when you start to justify yourself or feel judged by others. Both are evidence of trying to prop up or defend something you believe is inherently, constantly, permanently you.

Second, we need to pay attention to where we get
caught in the world of shoulds: life should be different, this shouldn’t be happening to me, and so on. One way to show generosity is by using our strengths to support others. 

Strengths can be seen
as the gifts we’ve been given, like a sense of humor or the ability to edit grammar and writing. Choose to be generous with these gifts and use them
to benefit others.

4. Friendships

We sometimes view people as being a glass we can see through. We think we know everything about them. There’s nothing new for us to know about their personality or capabilities. In other words, we view them as static, unchanging things. We tell ourselves that “Tim is like that” or “Stacey is like this.” We don’t see how they are always changing right in front of us. If we view people as static objects, we won’t be curious to know more.

A key part of friendship is curiosity, and curiosity is linked to appreciation and caring. It drives us to see the uniqueness and nuance in the most mundane things. If you’ve worked with someone for a while, you might think you’ve reached the end of what you can know about her. Not true. You’ve simply stopped being curious and appreciative.

5. The Unknown

Sometimes, it’s good to think about the future. We need to plan, use a calendar, set goals, and so on. However, in thinking about the future, we tend to think we can control all the causes and conditions that make an outcome possible. Thinking this way brings a false sense of security and more anxiety. We cannot control all of the causes and conditions that make our lives function well. 

We cannot control the future. Finding pleasure in the unknown is an adventure that makes us human. It’s enjoying the mystery that is life rather than trying to solve the mysteries of life. The key idea is not getting caught up in the past, beating yourself up, ruminating, and so on. Let the past inform the present and the future so that you can act more skillfully.

This is an abridged script from Dr. Daphne Scott’s new book Waking Up a Leader: Five Relationships of Success.

Great philosophers have said throughout the ages that change is inevitable, and that certainly seems true in the moment we’re living through. How can we lead our teams through this time of disruption? It turns out that change is hard for humans, especially when our health, jobs, or the survival of our businesses depend on it.

Why is change so challenging for people, even when we know it is necessary or useful for us? It may have to do with how our brains are wired. According to integrative neuroscientist Dr. Evian Gordon, Ph.D., MD, maintaining safety is the core driver of brain function — what he calls the “safety 1st principle.” Our nonconscious brain can see even beneficial change as a threat. Change often requires that we learn new skills and build new habits, which challenge the certainty of our current actions and can make us feel we’re losing control.

Disruptive events create a perception of threat that can put management and executives tasked with leading change directly in conflict with their own brains’ core needs for safety and stability. At the moment when they need to be open, flexible, and adaptive, they may fall into the trap of being defensive, protective, and closed, undermining their own best efforts. Even the best technical and management solutions can’t overcome this evolutionary hardwiring of our brains. Leaders can explain the need to change all day, yet such rational, objective reasoning does little to make change successful.

So, how can we cultivate new patterns of thinking and ways of working together that allow us to embrace uncertain times?

Integrating rituals to practice openness, whether consciously designed or not, teams practice rituals that send their members messages, or cues, about what is safe, acceptable, and predictable. These rituals create and reinforce social norms. Rituals can be generative and can reward innovation and ingenuity, or they can send messages that cause team members to remain closed and protectionist — to shut people down — as we often see in siloed organizations. The regularity of rituals reinforces ways of thinking and behaving, so they become second nature to us. We can build in intentional rituals that allow people to practice remaining open and curious, creating new brain patterns that become stable over time, and that can persist even during times of change and uncertainty. The familiarity of rituals can give us a sense of certainty and stability, even as they are nudging us toward evolving and changing.

Peter Cooper, the legendary investor, founder, and CIO of Australian investment firm Cooper Investors, uses regular rituals based on neuroscience and universal human values of humility, curiosity, and being in the present moment. CI’s approach to rituals is not common in the financial industry, shiny object management trends, nor are they found in formulaic management techniques often taught in MBA programs. The rituals that CI regularly practices prime their employees to deal with uncertainty in the market and protect them from overcompensating in the face of threat. A ritual around humility, for example, can include regularly acknowledging that many investment decisions are based on incomplete information; it can be modeled by admitting mistakes and not doubling down on faulty thinking to save face.

Creating norms and rituals around being present can include explicitly calling out the typical biases and heuristics (mental shortcuts) that prevent us from observing things as they are — for example, our bias toward confirming what we already believe. Rewarding curiosity can cultivate learning mindsets, which are vital to being open to change and finding new possibilities. At CI, for instance, investors and executive leadership understand how rational thinking is only part of the problem-solving process, and they are allowed space to give both rational and intuitive explanations when thinking through complex problems.

As humans, change is never easy. We may be wired to resist it because of the “safety 1st” principle. Understanding and acknowledging that our nonconscious minds drive much of our conscious thoughts can help leaders and teams feel safe and stable, even during uncertainty. Building the right rituals can allow us to buffer against our automatic reflexes to threat and create social norms that reward the flexible, open thinking we need to keep up and thrive in uncertainty.

What have been your experiences been with overcoming the threat of change and forming new habits to adapt to challenges?

Legend has it a man was driving his relatively new Rolls Royce across the English countryside. The luxury vehicle unexpectedly coughed, sputtered, and stopped running. 

Realizing it was several miles back to the nearest small town, he called the dealership where he had purchased the car for their advice. The friendly service tech got his location and promised to have a response in less than a half-hour. The man was a bit surprised since his Rolls dealership was two hours away. 

Twenty minutes later, a helicopter landed on the roadside near his Rolls, and a repairman got out and began to do mechanical surgery under the bonnet (a.k.a., hood). After a few minutes, the car was running perfectly again, and the helicopter departed as quickly as it had arrived. The man was very impressed by this James Bond-like over-the-top response.  

A couple of months later, he realized he had not received a bill for the miraculous roadside service. He called his dealership; they reported no record of a roadside repair. “But, where did the helicopter and mechanic come from?” he asked. The service tech suggested someone at the corporate headquarters might know and transferred him to the Rolls headquarters in Derby. 

Again, a friendly service person could not find any record of a service call and suggested he worry no more. As he was about to hang up, she warmly added, “Besides sir, Rolls Royce cars do not break down! They are built for the utmost perfection.”

Through the lens of this story, examine what it would take to create a magical myth that your offering was perfect, astonishing, remarkable, or practically a miracle. It starts with great pride in product and service coupled with the zeal to guarantee always to match your customers’ hopes, not their expectations. It requires elevating standards to the pinnacle of superiority. As my friend Shep Hyken would say, it also takes leaders who inspire employees to “be amazing or go home.”

Add Magic to Your Service Vision

How do service leaders foster a vision laced with magic? It starts with having a vision that excites, challenges, and points to a noble aspiration. 

Author Seth Godin sometimes asks his audiences to “raise your hand as high as you can.” After the audience complies, he adds, “Now, raise your hand a little higher.” You can predict the outcome. Everyone held back a little instead of complying with his initial request. 

Focusing on magic-making stretches employees to reach as high as they can every time.

Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company’s mission (or credo) contains “magic in the mission.” It reads: “The Ritz-Carlton experience…fulfills even the unexpressed wishes and needs of our guests.” 

Armed with this vision, a waiter at the restaurant at the Crystal City, VA property had an associate go to the theater in the adjoining shopping mall to get a box of popcorn when a guest asked his son what he wanted for dessert. “Popcorn,” the young man said. And, moments later, a bowl of popcorn appeared. But here is the best part. When the guest returned to the same restaurant a year later, he was asked by a different waiter, “Would you want popcorn for dessert again, sir.”

Show Associates the Magic You Expect

A mid-seventies age customer of Umpqua Bank stopped by the nearest branch to request a stop payment on a check he had written to a firewood supplier. The supplier had promised to deliver a load of firewood and split it. The firewood was delivered, but the supplier claimed he didn’t have time to split it! “Go get an ax!” was the solution the supplier offered when the elderly man asked how he was to get the wood split. The bank retail service manager had to inform the customer that, unfortunately, his check to the supplier had already been deposited.

For most banks, that would have been the end of the story. But, that’s not how the “World’s Greatest Bank” does customer service! With two other associates, axes in hand, the retail service manager drove eighty miles to the customer’s home. They split and stacked the wood and swept the garage clean! You can imagine the emotional impact on the customer whose only source of heating was his fireplace. Will Rogers wrote: “People don’t learn from conversation; they learn from observation.” 

According to the official Rolls Royce history, when Henry Royce was designing the first Rolls Royce, a colleague suggested he “turn out a reliable car at a low price.” Royce had a vision of magic—“the best motor car in the world regardless of cost.” Henry Royce (and his partner Charles Rolls) led with such purpose and conviction that the dream became a modern-day reality, one not possible without inspiring the fledgling Roll-Royce team to dream big, raise their hands high, and work with a spirit of magic-making!