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FROM CHAOS
TO COHERENCE
FROM CHAOS
TO COHERENCE
HEARTMATH
SYSTEM
PL ANETARY
A DI VI S I ON OF HEARTMATH LLC
www. hear t mat h. com
Business Management/Personal Development $16.00
DOC CHILDRE BRUCE CRYER
FROM
CHAOS
TO
COHERENCE
FOREWORD BY ROBERT K. COOPER, PH.D.
(the power to change performance)
FCTC Cover.ID 1/7/04, 12:53 PM 1
What people are saying about From Chaos to Coherence . . .
advances the future by putting inner leadership at the forefront, where it
should be.
Robert Cooper, Ph.D.
author, Executive EQand The Other 90%
highly practical a potent combination of biomedical and research valida-
tion a must-read.
Ken Blanchard, co-author, The One-Minute Manager and Gung Ho
[Childre and Cryer have] found the way everyone in an organization, from
the boardroom to the mail room, can transform themselves and the company
into a coherent, super-productive entity.
Charles Inlander, President, People's Medical Society
Ideal and sim ple tools for the internal trans for ma tion within our people. The re sults
speak for them selves. Our air line, Cathay Pacifc, now prides itself on de liv er ing an
individual style of ser vice, straight from the heart. This has resulted in con sis tent ly
being rated as having the best infight service in the world.
Peter Buecking, Director, Sales and Marketing
Cathay Pacifc Airways Ltd., Hong Kong
HeartMath is making signifcant progress in de vel op ing the research un der -
pin nings that ex plain the powerful benefts of IQM for the per son and the orga-
nization.
Tim Stone, CEO, Provizio
Being at the vortex of the high-tech industry is very stressful. Using the techniques
outlined in this book has literally added ten years to my life!
Patricia B. Seybold, CEO, the Patricia Seybold Group, and author,
Customers.com: How to Create a Proftable Business Strategy
for the Internet and Beyond
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A manual for anyone who wants to enhance their competitive edge through
in tu i tive intelligence . . . and to adapt to more challenging times with ef fec -
tive ness and ease.
Vivian Wright, Strategic Change Services
Hewlett-Packard
. . . Brings irrefutable scientifc underpinning to what our hearts have al ways told us
about leadership and organizational development: intuition, sup port for in di vid u als,
clarity, balance, and management of the emotional en vi ron ment all add up to or ga -
ni za tions that are productive . . . and to lives that are ful flled.
James A. Autry, author
Real Power: Business Lessons from the Tao Te Ching
Speaks equally well to the leaders of large or ga ni za tions as it does to people in all
walks of life, encouraging them to use in nate heart in tel li gence in dealing with the
rapid pace of change during a very hec tic time in our his to ry.
Colonel Susan Goodrich, United States Air Force
The back ground physiology and the scientifc underpinning of this technique are
ab so lute ly sound.
Graham Bridgewood, MD, Chief Medical Offcer
Shell International, United Kingdom
There are two notable breakthroughs for Childre and Cryer in this book. They take
the com plex and make it simple, and the abstract and make it real. A must read for
anyone who wants to lead, support, or be a part of a high-performance team.
W. R. Max Carey, Jr., Chairman and CEO
Corporate Resource Development
. . . HeartMaths core approach and its related programs . . . yields remarkable re-
sults.
Lucius C. Tripp, MD, MPH, Division Head, Occupational Medicine,
Henry Ford Health Systems; former Regional Medical Director,
General Motors; and Principal, Wellness Group, Inc.
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 2
HeartMath takes the mystery out of boosting organizational performance. Expect to
elevate not only your business but your own personal existence as well. This book will
profoundly and signifcantly change your life.
Debbie Reichenbach, Manager, Employee Development
Tellabs
. . . A wonderful, effective path to serenity for crazy, busy executives. The program
not only works as a problem fxer, but more importantly it enriches ones life. . . .
Equips you to cope not only with all the stress in life, but then goes way beyond in
in tro duc ing pos i tive, lasting changes.
Bob Morgan, President
Council of Growing Companies
Challenging, insightful, provocative, practical, inspiring . . . a new and exciting per-
spec tive on how to improve . . . performance.
Warner Woodley, Senior Vice President
Right Management Consultants, Canada
. . . Exciting and life-changing . . . this book is a must for survival.
Fred Verhey, Vice President of Sales, Western Region
Decker Communications, Inc.
From Chaos to Coherence offers powerful tools, research, and case studies [for] in di -
vid u als and organizations seeking to make better decisions, create cohesive teams,
and achieve sus tain able results.
Kristine Dale, President
CEOProductions.com
. . . Essential ingredients for business success.
Nancy Katz, President and CEO
Calypte Biomedical
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 3
. . . Masterfully weaves patterns of recent breakthroughs and chaos and com plex i ty
re search, heart sciences, and organizational change work, into a rich tapestry of in-
for ma tion, insights, and inspiration.
George Por, Founder and Senior Consultant
Community Intelligence Labs
. . . A book of profound operating intelligence.
Allan Cox, author
Straight Talk for Monday Morning, Redefning Corporate Soul
From Cha os to Co her ence is clear ly designed to help an organization excel rather From Cha os to Co her ence From Cha os to Co her ence
than fall apart under these pressures.
Susan Mandl, President and CEO
Newcourt Communications Finance
A most pow er ful method for enhancing or ga ni za tion al learn ing.
Nick Zeniuk, former executive at Ford,
President, Interactive Learning Labs Inc. and
Trustee-steward for The So ci ety for Or ga ni za tion al Learn ing (SoL)
In all the books, texts and papers that I have read con cern ing effective man-
age ment none has had the positive im pact on me that this book has had.
Jack H. Holland, Ph.D., DSD, Emeritus Pro fes sor of Management
San Jose State University
. . . Begin[s] with coping with chaos and stress but ultimately it leads us to a uni ver sal
source of inner peace and clarity.
James E. Warren, Jr., CFP, President
Warren Financial Review, Inc.
The book reveals sophisticated medical research about heart intelligence that is
un der stood by nonmedical minds. . . . [It] provides meaningful data and in for ma tion
mar i nat ed with prac ti cal tools on how to simplify solutions to lifes chal leng es.
Tim McGarvey, President and CEO
Eclipse 2000, Inc.
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 4
From Chaos to Coherence
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 5
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 6
From Chaos to Co her ence
[the power to change performance]
Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer
Revised Edition
Planetary
A Division of HeartMath LLC
Boulder Creek, California
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 7
Copyright 2004 by HeartMath LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a re triev al system, or trans mit ted in any form or by any means, elec-
tron ic, me chan i cal, photocopying, re cord ing, or otherwise, without the
pri or written permission of the publisher.
HeartMath
, Freeze-Frame
(IQM), Heart
Lock-In
: One-Minute
Self-Management ............................................68
Chapter 6 Time, Expectations, and Other Things Its
Diffcult to Manage.........................................83
DYNAMIC 2 Coherent Communication........................99
Chapter 7 Chapter 7 Chapter 7 Authentic Communication: Its Time for
Some Serious Consideration .......................101
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 9
[ x ] [ x [ x From Chaos to Coherence
Chapter 8 Technology, Inner Technology, and the
Measure of Human Capital ............................. 121
DYNAMIC 3 Boosting the Organizational
Climate..................................................141
Chapter 9 Theres a Virus Loose and Its Got Bob........... 143
Chapter 10 Core Values: The Foundation of
Sustainability ................................................165
DYNAMIC 4 Strategic Processes of Renewal ............. 185
Chapter 11 Leading from Chaos to Coherence..............187
Chapter 12 Creating a Quantum Future .......................217
References ..................................................................230
Glossary .....................................................................239
Selected Reading .......................................................251
Index...........................................................................255
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 10
[ xi ]
Foreword to
the Revised Edi tion
Robert K. Cooper, Ph.D.
Chair, Advanced Ex cel lence Sys tems
Chair of the Board, Q-Metrics
Fellow, Silicon Val ley World Internet Center
International best-sell ing author of The Per for mance Edge
and Executive EQ: Emo tion al In tel li gence in Lead er ship & Or ga ni za tions
THIS BOOK IS A GIFT TO EV ERY INDIVIDUAL AND
or ga ni za tion striv ing to make a dif fer ence, not just a liv ing, in
to day's pres sure-flled society. As you will learn in the pages
ahead, re cent discoveries in neu ro science have turned much
con ven tion al wis dom about success upside down.
Over the years I have come to believe that each of us is
born with a unique po ten tial that defnes a destiny in life and
at work. Few of us ever glimpse this hidden, one-of-a-kind po-
ten tial, much less liberate and explore it.
Among the main reasons for this is our over-dependence
on the intelligence that exists in the brain in the head and our
un der-uti li za tion of intelligence from the newly discovered sec-
ond brain in the hu man heart and third brain in the hu man
gut. By design, this complex and integrated three-part in tel -
li gence system is meant to be bril liant ly utilized and dis trib ut ed
throughout every aspect of human and or ga ni za tion al life. To
date, however, it rarely is. This book in vites you to change that.
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[ xii ] From Chaos to Coherence
In a compelling call to action, Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer
draw upon leading edge research and years of practical ex pe -
ri ence to chal lenge each reader and or ga ni za tion to ad vance in
meaningful and mea sur able ways. Their approach is de signed
to help streamline your efforts instead of making them more
com pli cat ed. It turns out that an ounce of positive emo tion can
be worth a ton of repetition.
I have found that when people successfully face challenges
and do the best work of their lives, its largely because they have
found their own distinctive ways to gen er ate exceptional lev-
els of energy, passion, inner strength, and commitment. From
Cha os to Coherence is a valuable contribution to the literature Cha os to Coherence Cha os to Coherence
on this subject.
This book advances the future by putting inner leader-
ship at the forefront, where it should be. This is vital reading
for man ag ers and professionals at every or ga ni za tion al level.
The next steps are up to you.
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 12
Foreword [ xiii ]
Foreword
Scott Shuster
Founding Director, Executive Programs, Business
Week
THE WORLD IS AN INTERNALLY CREATED PHENOMENON.
We take the in puts re ceived through our senses and process
that sensory data through our men tal i ty and emo tions to create
what each of us experiences as the world.
Every persons world is necessarily different from everyone
elses.
The quality of your individual world depends on your skill
in man ag ing and using the data that pours into you: The better
you are at operating your bodys data processing systems, the
more accurate your understanding of the world. And the more
accurate your im pres sions of the world around and within you,
the better chance you have of re spond ing to the world in the
man ner most effective for you and those with whom you as so -
ci ate.
But what are your internal systems? How do they work?
Where are the levers of con trol within us and how do we reach
those levers? Such mys ter ies of human design and response
have been the work of Doc Childre for over 30 years. In the early
1970s, Doc discovered that the human heart, an organ that ap-
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 13
[ xiv ] [ xiv [ xiv From Chaos to Coherence
pears to be principally a pump, in fact plays a demonstrable role
in human emotional response and in tel li gence. Hardly a sur-
prise to lov ers, songwriters, poets, or parents. But Doc proved it,
developing a thor ough go ing set of mental and phys i cal practices
that harness the emotional power of the heart mus cle and direct
that power toward the reduction of stress, im proved group in-
ter ac tion, and other positive effects. He called it HeartMath.
Doc and his collaboratorsSara Paddison, Rollin Mc-
Craty, Howard Martin, Deborah Rozman, Bruce Cryer, and oth-
erslearned that the lin ear i ty of human thought and the pace
at which the body and mind tend to move from one momentary
ex pe ri ence to another were additional tools that could lever the
basic discovery concerning the role of the heart muscle. They
also learned that the HeartMath prac tice is especially effective
when conducted in the presence of oth erscoworkers, for ex-
am ple.
Through the work of the not-for-proft Institute of Heart-
Math and more recently through the development of IQM (In-
ner Quality Man age ment) techniques, Docs HeartMath tools
for the en hance ment of personal experience have been turned
to the sphere of team development and the improvement of or-
ga ni za tions. HeartMath and IQM today are being feld ed to the
corporate, gov ern ment, and military sectors. Repeat buyers of
the training in clude Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Canadian Im-
pe ri al Bank of Com merce, Royal Dutch Shell (UK), and Cathay
Pacifc Airways (Hong Kong), as well as many state, fed er al, and
provincial government agen cies throughout North America.
IQM is so hot that Doc, Bruce, and the man age ment team of
his newly formed for-proft training and consulting com pa ny,
HeartMath LLC, are rapidly expanding to meet the world wide
corporate demand for their training courses.
On an afternoon in 1992, Bruce Cryer frst appeared in
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 14
[ xv ] [ xv [ xv
front of my desk at Business Week Executive Programs, 36 foors
up in Rockefeller Center in the heart of midtown Man hat tan.
His task was to impart an awareness of what at frst appears to
be pop psy chol o gy to a frankly skeptical editor in ter est ed only
in information of practical ap pli ca tion to the needs of large cor-
po ra tions. Bruce had no cor po rate clients at all: only a few pris-
ons, a juvenile delinquency pro gram, some school districts, and
a U.S. Army base.
The technology of HeartMath proves itself to any skep-
tic in sec onds: Focus your thinking on the pump beating in
your chest. Im me di ate ly the body warms and frame of mind is
loosened and changed. This was Doc Childres remarkable dis-
cov ery, a naturally oc cur ring transformative tech nol o gy of the
human body that had some how gone un dis cov ered or at least
undeveloped, unrecorded, and untransmitted for cen tu ries.
It was as though Bruce had brought me the frst re port of the
wheel, the telephone, or the semiconductor. I could see that this
was a new and dramatically useful tech nol o gy.
HeartMath is signifcant both as a discovery and as a def -
ni tion: Thanks to this book by Doc and Bruce, and to Doc's past
volumes, this remarkable internal tech nol o gy of the human
body is unlikely to again be forgotten. As news of the tech niques
spreads, HeartMath will be come part of the lexicon of hu man
behavior, part of everyones life.
There is no limit to the potential of HeartMath because at
root it is a simple, phys i cal act: a mental formation, a thought
with physical effects. It is neither philosophy, faith, nor belief.
The essentially phys i cal character of the practice enables its
easy ap pli ca tion across all the barriers that cus tom ar i ly divide
humanity. There is nothing cul tur al ly American about Heart-
Math. It will not transgress any re li gious or cultural pre cept. It
will work as well in India, Iran, China, or Nigeria as it works in
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 15
[ xvi ] From Chaos to Coherence
California, New York, the United Kingdom, or Sweden.
Within this potential universality lies HeartMaths im-
mense promise: If everybody did this, what a wonderful world.
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 16
[ xvii ]
Introduction to
the Revised Edi tion
THE YEARS SINCE THE ORIGINAL PUBLICATION OF THIS
book in 1998 have seen remarkable change. The internet
spawned an e-com merce revolution few of even the most op ti -
mis tic prog nos ti ca tors could have predicted. Technology stocks
su per charged an incredible period of economic ex pan sion.
Wealth was created at an unheard of pace. Con sol i da tion hap-
pened across many industries, creating fewer competitors and
giant behemoths. Bigger is better. So is faster. Dot-coms were
the rage, then the failures became staggering. Economic con-
traction, fed by the sudden glut of technology, set a wor ried tone
in American society, and then the terrorist attacks of Sep tem ber
11, 2001 shocked an American society which be lieved its wealth
and power somehow protected it from such acts, while many in
Western Europe and elsewhere wondered, Whos next?
The pace of change was wild and exciting, and then it
turned dark and frightening, ag ing many of us faster than we
re al ize. Whats the price to us, from the sustainability of our
or ga ni za tions to the sustainability of our social systems, to the
qual i ty of life were mod el ing to our kids?
Theres another momentum picking up speed in the
worlda coherence momentum. Even in an era of un prec e-
dent ed economic and political uncertainty, this momentum
is ush er ing in new de sire to con nect, new forms of com mu ni -
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 17
[ xviii ] From Chaos to Coherence
cat ing, new busi ness mod els, new types of re la tion ships, and
new intelligence.
So where does the heart ft in? Employees loved stock op-
tions but now crave mean ing in their work in place of non-stop
anxiety. Companies still angst over shareholder val ue and be ing
frst-to-market, but more strive to make the 100 Best Plac es
to Work list so all the talent doesnt leave when the economy
improves. Gen-Xers and boomers alike are drawing lines in the
sand about per son al free dom, fun and fulfllment.
This book is about bringing coherence out of what in creas -
ing ly seems chaotic and crazy. It will describe a set of tools be ing
used around the world to help people sift through the moun-
tains of data, to reduce their stress, and to rebuild the health
and vitality of themselves and their or ga ni za tions.
This book presents new research dis cov er ies that are fun-
damentally changing the way we view healthy, high-performing
individuals and organizations. It will pro vide prac ti cal tools to
open up your think ing to new ways of be ingfor you and your
or ga ni za tion. It doesnt have all the answers but it should make
you ask some really good ques tions. It may even awaken your
heart.
-Doc Childre and Bruce Cryer, 2004
001 Frontmatter FCTC.ID 1/6/04, 11:09 AM 18
[ 1 ]
c h a p t e r
11
Business at the
Speed of Bal ance
Some day, after we have mas tered the winds, the waves,
the tides, and gravity...we shall harness...the en er gies of
love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world,
men will have discovered fre.
TEILHARD DE CHARDIN
SPEED IS AN INCREDIBLE DRUG. JUST ASK A FORMULA ONE
driv er, a day-trad er, or the CEO of any one of thousands of start-
ups try ing desperately to get there frst with the next great idea,
the really cool technology, the killer app. We have con vinced
our selves fast er is better, indeed faster is man da to ry. Lethargy, man da to ry man da to ry
even bal ance, is death in todays mar kets. But what fuel is driv-
ing us? Is our organizationare werun ning on high-oc tane
or the fumes of fear? Fear well lose the race, be left be hind, be
dumped in the trash heap of what could have been?
Balance sounds boring. And whos got time for it? Who
cares that our bodies were not designed to handle the in cred i ble
information tsunami unleashed over the last de cade? Who cares
that information is now doubling every 12-18 months, com-
pared to every 30-36 months in 1995, or every 20 years back
in 1954? Who cares that most people in business today must
process hundreds of inputs daily (one survey sug gests 205 mes-
sages per day is the current average), let alone their regular job.
Who cares that in parallel with the glo bal iza tion of information
has developed an alarming rise of youth violence? Or that it took
01 Ch 1 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:45 PM 1
[ 2 ] From Chaos to Coherence
the planet several million years to reach 3 billion inhabitants,
and less than 50 to add 3 billion more.
1
Many people care.
From Chaos to Coherence was written for the future health From Chaos to Coherence From Chaos to Coherence
of organizations and the future potential of people. It proposes
a new way to build or ga ni za tions that respond to change, crisis,
and chal lenge with poise, fexibility, and balance. Organizations
built of peo ple who respond quickly and caringly to changes in
the econ o my, their markets, their culture, and in themselves.
The how is a blend of sci ence, business practicality, and the
combined in tel li gence of the hu man heart and in tel lect.
Our view is that a new level of or ga ni za tion al effciency,
syn chro ni za tion, and effectiveness is pos si ble by studying and
ap ply ing new in for ma tion about the intelligence of the human
system. Or ga ni za tions will make only incremental im prove ments
in ef fec tive ness and sustainability until a more thorough and sen-
sitive un der stand ing of the human system resides at the core of
how or ga ni za tions function.
Research during the 90s profoundly deepened our knowl-
edge of hu man intelligence, opening up radical new pos si -
bil i ties. The fact that intelligence is distributed through out the distributed distributed
hu man sys tem and that the heart is an intelligent system pro-
found ly af fect ing brain pro cess ing represents a new model for found ly af fect ing brain pro cess ing found ly af fect ing brain pro cess ing
help ing or ga ni za tion al sys tems become more balanced, more
in tel li gent, more adaptive, and more humane. In many ways, the
emer gence of the Web mirrors this discovery.
Our team set out to build a coherent organization that would
put both care and effciency at the heart of all our activities: care
for our cli ents and care for ourselves, effcient service for our cus-
tom ers, and in ter nal effciency for ourselves. Many of the 20 or
so who formed the original team at HeartMath had experience
working in com pa nies or public agencies mired in in co her ence
01 Ch 1 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:45 PM 2
Business at the Speed of Balance [ 3 ]
and in ef fec tive ness. Hu man values often were absent, and so was
business ef f cien cy. Ear ly on, Doc recognized a link between the
heart of a per son and the heart of an or gan ization. He knew organi-
zations re fect the col lec tive mind-sets and attitudes of the people
who in hab it them.
We spent most of the 90s deeply researching human phys i -
ol o gy and or ga ni za tion al effectiveness. We tested our the o ries
and tools with thousands of people in dozens of public and
pri vate sec tor organizations in North America, Europe and Asia,
and in the organizations we built. Through this pro cess we
de vel oped In ner Qual i ty Man age ment
: One-Minute
Self Man age ment
AS KIDS WE WERE TAUGHT: STOP, LOOK, LISTEN. AS ADULTS,
the new mantra has become: stop, shift, listen.
The re search de scribed in Chap ter Three in di cates that the
heart-mind-body com plex is in her ent ly de signed to work in en-
er gy-ef f cient, har mon ic, syn chro nized ways. This is as much to
main tain our en er gy lev els when deal ing with ex ter nal en vi ron -
men tal or so cial fac tors as to max i mize the po ten tial for growth.
Aware ness of the nat u ral in ner workings of our system, if ap-
plied with even a fraction of the en er gy we ap ply to learn ing ex-
ternal systems such as com put ers, tech no log i cal con ve nienc es,
or any skill we throw our heart into, can have a huge payoff. The
payoff starts with pay ing at ten tion.
Freeze-Frame is a pow er ful tool to neutralize any neg a tive
or in ef f cient re ac tionor
pre vent it before it startsby
cap i tal iz ing on the built-in
heart-brain com mu ni ca tion
link. Freeze-Frame is a way
to stop the ac tion (much like
press ing the pause button
on your VCR or DVD re mote
control), shift your focus of
at ten tion, and scan for en er gy-
[ 68 ]
T
he next theme of internal
self-man age ment is this:
Individuals can learn to in crease
their ca pac i ty for in tel li gence
re sult ing in more ef fec tive de ci -
sions, great er re sil ience, and a
height ened sense of well-be ing.
This pro vides enor mous val ue to
any organization.
Frame is a pow er ful tool to neutralize any neg a tive
05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:50 PM 68
Freeze-Frame: One-Minute Self Management [ 69 ]
sav ing so lu tions. While Freeze-Frame is by no means a tool just
to re duce stress, regular prac tice of the tech nique great ly height-
ens your aware ness of the noise in your sys tem and al lows you
to hear a common-sense voice inside. You gain in creased access
to in tel li gence.
Freeze-Frame is a fast-acting power tool for transforming
stress ful thoughts and emotions into clarity, allowing you to take
ef f cient and ef fec tive action. With practice, you gain increased
pow er to come to balance and quickly change a negative, drain ing
response into a proactive, creative one. Here are the steps.
Freeze-Frame Steps
1. Take a time out so that you can tem po rari ly dis en gage from
your thoughts and feelingsespecially stress ful ones.
2. Shift your focus to the area around your heartnow feel your
breath com ing in through your heart and out through your
so lar plexus.
Practice breathing this way a few times to ease into the tech-
nique.
3. Make a sincere effort to ac ti vate a pos i tive feeling.
This can be a genuine feel ing of ap pre ci a tion or care for some-
one, some place or some thing in your life.
4. Ask yourself what would be an ef f cient, effective at ti tude or
action that would balance and de-stress your sys tem.
5. Quietly sense any change in per cep tion or feel ing and sus tain
it as long as you can.
Heart perceptions are often sub tle. They gently suggest ef fec tive
solutions that would be best for you and all con cerned.
Step one requires self-awareness and the realization that
learn ing about your internal communication network will max-
i mize every as pect of your fulfllment. This is like scanning to
05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:50 PM 69
[ 70 ] From Chaos to Coherence
see what seems out of phase, troubling, or confusing.
Step two sets the stage for a new approach. Focusing in
the area of the heart is unfamiliar to many people but quickly
be comes natural. People usu al ly feel their most positive feelings
of love, appreciation, or joy as warm sensations around their
heart. Do not try to feel the heart beating or any oth er phys i o-
log i cal sensation in the organ; rather focus your attention gen tly
in that area. Try to be neutral. (Focusing frst on your big toe for
a few seconds, then the palm of your hand, then the cen ter of
your chest helps give you a feel for this focusing pro cess. Once
you feel comfortable focusing in the area of the heart there is
no need to repeat the focus on the big toe or hand.) Breathing
deeply helps increase the sensation. The es sence of step two is
to anchor yourself in your heart so you are not dragged back in
to the ineffcient mental loops that caused you to Freeze-Frame
in the frst place.
In Step three you activate a positive feeling. This both
neu tral iz es the neg a tive emotion you had and brings increased
electrical coherence to the body. This step goes beyond vi su -
al iz ing a pretty scene or having a happy thought. The in tent is al iz ing al iz ing
to actually feel it. Just as the amygdala in the brain has the power feel feel
to conjure up negative emotional mem o ries that can rob clear
perception, you can generate positive feel ings which re store you you
balance phys i o log i cal ly while widening per spec tive.
Step four enables you to revisit the problem from a new
emo tion al state. At worst, you have neutralized the stress re-
ac tion and stopped a mental, emotional, and physical drain. At
best, you also have gained insight that helps you solve prob lems
or take action.
Step fve ensures that you listen to and act on any new in-
sights.
05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:50 PM 70
Freeze-Frame: One-Minute Self Management [ 71 ]
Why Does Freeze-Frame Work?
By consciously shifting focus from the problem causing stress
and fo cus ing instead in the area of the heart on a positive feel-
ing, you are withdrawing amplitude from the problem and al-
low ing your per spec tive to widen. In Freeze-Frame, the pro cess
of shifting focus to the heart enables the power in the elec tri cal
system of the heart to work for you, resulting in new in tu i tive
insights for dealing with the prob lem. Even if no new in sights
appear, Freeze-Frame can get you into neutral, buying you time
for more clarity while reducing the strain on you.
The affairs of the heart are directly connected to the brain
and its the hearts natural intelligence that must be un-
fold ed for the brain to operate with greater effciency.
JOSEPH CHILTON PEARCE, EVOLUTIONS END
Like Bruce, the realization that asking the heart for guid-
ance could re sult in intelligent solutions came early on in my
professional life. A native of North Carolina, like many of my
friends, I began work ing at a furniture fac to ry after a tour in the
military. Conficts erupt ed on the job, particularly when I felt
un fair ly judged. Still fairly hot-tempered, a deeper intelligence
reminded me that to lose it over something trivial could jeop-
ar dize my job. Arriving late for work one day, I was soundly hu-
mil i at ed by a supervisor. I was determined to tell off my su per -
vi sor, over the prin ci ple of it, but I realized this was short sight ed
and foolish. Heart in tel li gence had saved the dayand saved
my job.
Freeze-Frame provides direct access to heart intelligence.
As you prac tice, you are retraining your physiology. Your mind
and body have be come quite familiar with the reactive pat-
ternsthey have become habit. These are habits it clearly is in
your self-interest to break. As you shift focus to your heart and
05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:50 PM 71
[ 72 ] From Chaos to Coherence
Freeze-Frame, heart rate patterns be come smoother, so the
mes sag es the heart is sending the brain fa cil i tate the brains
ac tiv i ties in stead of inhibit them. The more bal anced emotional
state Freeze-Frame gives you also al lows for great er electrical
co her ence in your body, so all sys tems can run more ef fec tive ly.
The essence of the Freeze-Frame process is
Shift
Ac ti vate
Sense
Shift your at ten tion to the area around your heart. Shift Shift Activate
a positive feel ing from the past or even some thing fun in the
fu ture. Sense a new, more effective attitude or action to take.
(Re mem ber, each time you act counter to your val ues, which
spring from your heart in tel li gence, you are fght ing your self. It
is a battle you can not win.)
Neutral
Neutral is one of the most ef f cient psychophysiological states
on the plan et. Neu tral is a state where you are not jumping
ahead too quick ly nor moving too slow ly. Neutral does not mean
being in ac tive, com pla cent, or pas sive. It is a calm poise that al-
lows new in for ma tion and new pos si bil i ties to emerge be fore
rushing to ac tion. When in neu tral you actually in crease your
sen si tiv i ty and in tu i tive in tel li gence. Neu tral is fertile ground
from which new pos si bil i ties can grow. It is not a state you could
sustain all your waking hoursat least not yetbut the minutes
and hours you are able to be neutral have tremendous benefts
in increased clarity, increased energy, and reduced ag ing.
Neutral means put ting the overactive mind in check, slow-
ing down the con stant stream of thoughts and taking a deep er,
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Freeze-Frame: One-Minute Self Management [ 73 ]
unbiased look at sit u a tions big and small. Neu tral saves wear
and tear on our bod ies. It keeps our sys tems working smooth ly,
in a fow. It is an eco nom i cal ap proach to life. If we con stant ly
react to every con ver sa tion, as sign ment, change, or random
perception, we drain away valu able energy that can be needed
when a de fn i tive ac tion needs to be tak en. Neu tral is not an
unfocused, un pro duc tive state. It is a highly in tel li gent, or dered
awareness that ob serves with out boxing you in.
Neutral takes practice be cause the mind works at high
speed and quick ly forms opin ions and perspectives about ev-
ery thing, right or wrong. E-mails are fying with rumors about a
man age ment change in your organization. You project neg a tive
scenarios into the fu ture, and ex pe ri ence a cas cade of what ifs,
de vi tal iz ing your system and com pro mis ing pro duc tiv i ty in the
pro cess. What ac tu al ly hap pened is that some one over heard a
com ment that the man ag er of your di vi sion is go ing to be trans-
ferred. They did not really hear the whole con ver sa tion, just a
few words. You only heard the rumor. With out go ing to neu tral
you can start to think things like, Does this mean the de part -
ment is going to have to go through an oth er re or ga ni za tion? I
bet Bill will get the man ag ers job in stead of me. I just knew it.
Thats just not fair! If its true and I dont get a pro mo tion I think
its time to start looking for another job. One pro jec tion leads
to another and an oth er and before long youve painted the en-
tire pic ture of a possible scenario on which you have very little
in for ma tion. All of that mental pro cess ing adds stress to your
sys tem and ac cel er ates the aging pro cess needlessly. At times
like these, a dose of neutral would go a long way. In neutral, you
would put the mind projections on hold. Stay bal anced and wait
and see what hap pens. You re al ly do not know the outcome of
the change or, in this ex am ple, if a change re al ly will take place.
05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:50 PM 73
[ 74 ] From Chaos to Coherence
Lets continue with the example: A coworker asks you if
you had heard any thing about a possible managerial change
and how you feel about it. You say that you are do ing fne, you
are neutral about it. On deep er review you could be feeling low-
grade angst inside. You believe that you have re al ly gone to neu-
tral be cause the po ten tial change no longer is caus ing an guish
and anxiety, but in truth you con tin ue to subtly process the po-
ten tial ly un pleasant pos si bil i ties all day, de vi tal iz ing as you go.
You might say you feel neutral about itbut not re al lynot to
the point where youre really at peace with it. From a heart in tel -
li gent per spec tive, you would see there still is un fn ished busi-
ness to take care of, a deeper state of neu tral to be ac tu al ized.
Neutral can be disguised in internal conversations:
What ev er. I guess it will be all right. Some how Ill probably fnd
a way to deal with it no mat ter how it goes. This kind of ap-
proach often is ac com pa nied by feel ings of res ig na tion. You feel
beaten down and have not really sur ren dered en thusiastically to
the situation. Real neutral con tains self-se cu ri ty. You peace ful ly
allow things to play out and use your avail able en er gy in more
productive ways.
Getting back to a neutral state is becoming increasingly
es sen tial for en hancing personal balance and effectiveness.
One study found that if you work too long at mental tasks, your
prob lem-solv ing time can increase by up to 500 percent.
1
When
you are in neu tral, energy is not draining, you are not wasting
gal lons of en er gy in worry or anxiety.
The Power of Becoming Neutral
Becoming neutral several times each day, even if you cannot
fnd a pos i tive feeling to focus on, gives you these benefts:
05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:50 PM 74
Freeze-Frame: One-Minute Self Management [ 75 ]
It prevents sudden surges of adrenaline that drain energy.
It stops chaotic messages inhibiting the brain, which slows
thinking.
As you pay at ten tion to the thoughts and feel ings that go
on each day, deep er levels of neutral can be achieved. This can
seem par a dox i cal, but as you increase in self-man age ment, you
be come more sen si tized to sub tle noise and incoherence in your
system. What seemed neutral when you start ed can be come
pro gres sive ly deep er aware ness. From this state of neu tral, your
system can re charge and new insights can un fold.
Stress Prevention
Most people have numerous pre dict able situations that throw
them off bal ance or cause stressthe weekly staff meet ing, the
daily com mute, the per for -
mance appraisal, tele phone
calls with clients, cus tom ers
or vendors. A 30-sec ond
Freeze-Frame pri or to any of
these events helps you man-
age your self, save en er gy and
in crease your co her ence.
Sit quietly at your desk,
eyes open or closed, shift your
fo cus in ter nal ly to the cen ter of
your chest and breathe deep ly.
Recall the most pos i tive feel-
ing you can mus ter. If you
are about to meet with or talk
to some one with whom you
have had con fict before, fnd
how do you get
neutral?
W
hat does it feel like?
Neutral is a state of qui-
etude in sidenot total si lence
or the total ab sence of thought,
but a state of greater bal ance
than usu al, a dynamic peace.
Use the frst two steps of Freeze-
Frame to get you there:
1. Recognize how you feel.
2. Shift your attention to the
area of the heart and breathe
through the heart and solar
plexus.
Stop. Shift. Listen
G
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C
o
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05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:50 PM 75
[ 76 ] From Chaos to Coherence
some thing in the per son to appreciate. Stay anchored in your
heart and re mind yourself to at least stay neu tral if the wa ters stay neu tral stay neu tral
get rough. (In later chapters, we de scribe how Freeze-Frame can
be in cor po rat ed in all com mu ni ca tion to ensure au then tic i ty in
what you say and depth in how you hear.)
Button Pushers
Have you ever experienced a neg a tive irrational reaction mere ly
on see ing the name of the send er of an e-mail mes sage? (Of
course you have. If you havent, you prob a bly are in e-denial.)
Do you ever think, Oh boy, here he goes again!? Do you ever
jump to con clu sions and start ac cus ing your child of naugh ty
be hav ior be fore fnd ing out the truth? In all these ex am ples,
you could be right to jus ti fy the re ac tionbased on the emo-
tion al mem o ry stored in the brain. How ev er, right or not, your
re ac tion is drain ing your energy, it could be cloud ing a more
ac cu rate per cep tion, and it can drive a spike into the heart of an
im por tant re la tion ship.
Staying neutral allows you to save energy just in case the just in case just in case
oth er per son was not to blame, the e-mail actually was a thank
you note, or the child was in no cent of the crime ac cused.
Neu tral is a tre men dous en er gy saver.
Energy Effciency
Focusing on internal self-man age ment results in more ef f cient
use of your energy on all lev elsmen tal ly, emo tion al ly, and
phys i cal ly. Stop to Freeze-Frame, then ask your self, What is the
most en er gy-ef f cient response in this sit u a tion? The con cept
of en er gy effciency became pop u lar in the gas-guz zling 1970s,
when the skyrocketing price of oil forced a rethinking of how we
spend our fnite en er gy re sourc es. Ap plied to the hu man system,
05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:50 PM 76
Freeze-Frame: One-Minute Self Management [ 77 ] [ 77 [ 77
be com ing more energy ef f -
cient per son al ly can help you
see a big ger picture, save en-
er gy now, and un told amounts
of en er gy lat er on. In creas ing
per son al en er gy ef f cien cy is
anal o gous to in creas ing profts:
More spare en er gy is avail able
to in vest in fun, cre ative, or
re gen er a tive ac tiv i ties.
Each day brings mul ti ple
new opportunities to explore
in creas ing en er gy effciency.
As you begin to Freeze-Frame
sev er al times a day, you will
be come more sen si tized to
sub tle stress es in your system.
You will no tice more often
when your ac tions con tra dict
an in tu i tive insight. You will
an tic i pate fu ture prob lems
ear li er and have in creased
en er gy avail able to pre vent prob lems or mitigate their dam-
age if they al ready oc curred. Ap ply this con cept to cus tom er or
patient interactions, wheth er or not to hold meet ings, or what
type of com mu ni ca tion is ap pro pri ate around a spe cifc is sue.
Con sid er ing energy ef f cien cy im me di ate ly shifts you into a
more expansive per cep tu al frame work, more options are seen,
and wider con se quenc es un der stood. Con sid er ing en er gy ef f -
cien cy in her ent ly in volves whole-sys tem views. If a par tic u lar
course of ac tion seems ex pe di ent to you or a key stake hold er
but would dra mat i cal ly alien ate oth er key play ers, it clear ly
learn to manage
your but ton-pushers
E
veryone has things or
people that push their but-
tons. Those but ton push ers
are generally fairly pre dict able,
as irritating as they may be. Make
a list of these seem ing ly mi nor ir-
ritants for a deep er look at things
that cause a reaction on a regular
ba sis. The fact that you continue
to re act means you are also be ing
pre dict able, the victim of neural
circuits that engage when ev er
the button-pusher does that
thing. Freeze-Frame or fnd a
neutral perspective to let your in-
tel li gence perceive the sit u a tion
in new ways.
learn to manage
G
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05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:50 PM 77
[ 78 ] From Chaos to Coherence
would not be energy ef f cient.
The ex tra en er gy you expend
to deal with the fall out could
neu tral ize the positive ben e ft
of the ex pe di ent de ci sion. As
you con sid er var i ous sce nar i os
this week or this year from
the point of view of en er gy
ef f cien cy, a new bal anced pic-
ture begins to emerge, of ten
yield ing sur pris ing in sights. A
pro cess for deep en ing these
in sights in prob lem-solv ing or
de ci sion-mak ing mo dal i ties is
called the as set-defcit balance
sheet. sheet sheet
The Asset-Defcit
Bal ance Sheet
The asset-defcit balance sheet
is designed to sys tem at i cal ly
un cov er new in for ma tion
about personal or busi ness prob lems while re duc ing the drain
of neg a tive or un bal anced emo tions. The con cept is that, when
mak ing de ci sions that re quire deeper re fec tion, a care ful weigh-
ing of the assets and def cits of the pro posed course of ac tion
yields clar i ty and more en er gy-ef f cient de ci sions. This pro cess,
by the very act of care ful ly con sid er ing upsides and down sides
from a neutral per spec tive, reduces emo tion al drag. Many times
in our own or ga ni za tion, people have made pro pos als op po site
to their orig i nal emo tion al im pulse, once they had con sid ered
deep ly all the as sets and def cits. Some times un ex pect ed as sets
freeze-frame
during meet ings
M
eetings can sometimes
begin to slow down and
de scend into chaos. Peo ple
start talking over each other,
dif fer enc es of opin ion begin to
arise and the orig i nal fo cus of
the meet ing starts to dis ap pear.
As a man ag er, once you re al ize
this is hap pen ing, it can help to
stop pro ceed ings for one min-
ute, dis en gage from the meet ing
pro cess and ask the group to do
a Freeze-Frame. This will help
sig nif cant ly to get the group
and your meet ing back on track
and moving forward with clarity
and balance.
G
e
t
C
o
he
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e
n
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05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:50 PM 78
Freeze-Frame: One-Minute Self Management [ 79 ]
came to mind that were un seen when the idea was frst fown.
Also com mon was the re al iza tion that po ten tial def cits are eas-
i ly man age able in the face of the over whelm ing assets. At oth er
times, sig nif cant def cits were re vealed that would have been
ig nored if the frst evan gel i cal in stinct had been fol lowed.
Business and Well-Be ing Im prove ments
All the clients we work with have critical business is sues that
need im prov ing. At Royal Dutch Shell in the United King-
dom, sev er al op er at ing com pa nies in sti tut ed pro grams in the
HeartMath tech nol o gy af ter a suc cess ful ini tial pilot pro gram
in volv ing mid dle and se nior lev el man ag ers. In the pi lot pro-
gram, several sig nif cant pos i tive chang es were not ed, in clud ing
an over all drop in blood pres sure from 126/80 to 118/78 with in
six weeks. Sig nif cant im prove ments were not ed in the group
an asset-defcit exercise
S
can the past week and jot down all the sig nif cant pos i tive
events that occurred, both per son al ly and pro fes sion al ly. Write
them down on the left side of a sheet of pa per un der the head ing As sets. Feel
ap pre ci a tion for each item you jot down. Now shift to the def cit side and,
from a neu tral per spec tive, jot down the neg a tive per son al and pro fes sion al from a neu tral per spec tive from a neu tral per spec tive
events dur ing the same pe ri od. Note if any of the def cits oc curred be cause
you failed to lis ten to in tu ition. Also note if any def cits could be trans-
formedat least neu tral izedthrough Freeze-Frame. No tice if the type of
as sets and def cits you have fall into a pat tern. For ex am ple, many peo ple say
their as sets are re la tion ship based but the def cits re fect sit u a tions be yond
their con trol. Often times, people are sur prised how much en er gy can be
drained by one or two def cits, while sig nif cant as sets go un no ticed. Freeze-
Frame one last time, then sum ma rize to dis cov er the es sence of your week.
How bal anced was it?
an asset-defcit exercise
05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:50 PM 79
[ 80 ] From Chaos to Coherence
with the high est lev el of stress. These in clud ed re duc tions of
65% in ten sion, 87% in fa tigue, 65% in an ger, and 44% in in ten -
tions to leave the com pa ny. A fur ther as sess ment six months
af ter HeartMath tools were in tro duced saw a fur ther re duc tion
in vir tu al ly all key pa ram e ters (see Fig ure 51).
2
At one of the worlds larg est and most powerful tech nol o gy
com pa nies, similar results oc curred for a high per for mance en gi -
neer ing team. Tracked against a con trol group of en gi neers from
the same di vi sion, the program was con duct ed dur ing one of the
most intense pe ri ods of growth and strain in the di vi sion.
rebounding
P
atricia Chapman at tend ed a HeartMath pro gram after a six-
year bout with ar rhyth mia and ven tric u lar ta chy car dia (an elec-
tri cal mal func tion ing of the heart). Her con di tion had in volved sev er al
se ri ous at tacks, sur gery, and an ex tend ed work ab sence. A longtime em-
ploy ee of one of Silicon Val leys leg end ary com pa nies, her job in volved
over see ing in ves tor re la tions, a high pres sure job to be sure! She stat ed,
I was so used to the adren a line rush that I did not know what it was
like not to have it. Af ter she at tend ed a week end HeartMath sem i nar,
Patricias col leagues im me di ate ly noticed a dif fer enceless stress and
ten sion and more ease, even dur ing a par tic u lar ly hectic work pe ri od.
Her ar rhyth mia spe cial ists at Stanford Uni ver si ty were also im pressed
and within fve months af ter her pro gram, they re duced her med i ca tion
by 50%. After my week end at HeartMath, when ev er that adren a line
would start to rush again, I could stop the trig ger. Now I can pull my self
back into bal ance at will. Her health im prove ment has now sus tained
for fve years and there have been no fur ther ep i sodes of ven tric u lar
ta chy car dia or need for surgery.
rebounding
05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:50 PM 80
Freeze-Frame: One-Minute Self Management [ 81 ]
The test group saw a 17% re duc tion in fatigue compared to
the con trol groups 1% in crease.
The test group had a 7% increase in vitality while the con-
trol group saw vitality fall 7%.
Sleeplessness improved 8% in the test group while it wors-
ened 18% in the control group.
Social support rose 11% in the test group while it de clined
by 6% in the control group.
FIGURE 51 A summary of stress-re lat ed improvements seen in three or ga -
ni za tions uti liz ing the IQM tech nol o gy. Pre- and post-IQM tech nol o gy values
represent a six-week pe ri od. Number values represent the percentage of
par tic i pants who re port ed the stress symptoms often or most of the time.
Copyright 1998 Institute of HeartMath Research Cen ter
05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:50 PM 81
[ 82 ] From Chaos to Coherence
Anxiety fell 13% in the test group while increasing 1% in
the control group.
Rapid heartbeats declined 17% in the test group, while ris-
ing 10% in the control group.
Among the tens of thousands of people worldwide who
have learned the IQM tools, one of the most common benefts
people cite is having more time. The next chapter explains how.
05 CH 5 FCTC.ID 01/06/04, 3:56 PM 82
c h a p t e r
66
Time, Expectations,
and Oth er Things Its
Dif f cult to Manage
TIME WAS TOUGH ENOUGH TO MANAGE; THEN THE
Internet arrived. 24/7, the pressures of doing business with
sev er al continents (let alone several time zones) in a sin gle
day, the need to generate clinical outcomes when man-
aged care forces cost and quality compromises, all add to the
col lec tive im pres sion time is rac ing ahead and the brakes
arent working. How do we step back with out fall ing be-
hind? More daringly, how do we see ahead with clar i ty and
vision without compromising our own health and balance?
One of the biggest energy drains for most people is their
love-hate re lationship with time. Time was a major challenge
while the frst edition of this book was be ing writ ten. All the
training and consulting activities of our non-proft organization
had just been licensed to a new for-proft company, HeartMath
LLC. Some re porting re la tion ships changed, no one lost his or
her job but many new jobs were add ed and many of our re la -
tion ships were changed pro found ly. Anyone who has been in-
volved with a sig nif cant business re struc tur ing understands the
com plex i ties involved. Add to that the legal, accounting, and tax
im plications of cre at ing a new for-proft company out of a not-
[ 83 ]
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 83
[ 84 ] From Chaos to Coherence
for-proft one.
1
Time felt crunched as people were chal lenged to
do their regular jobs while spend ing con sid er able time plan ning
and or ga niz ing the tran si tion.
While this transition was essential to the ex pan sion of our
work, we did not rush it. We set mile stones and goals, mar shaled
resources hop ing to meet them, but stayed fex i ble in the face of
busi ness and legal re al i ties. This change was not one we would
undo, so taking our time and do ing it prop er lywith min i mal
strain on the peo ple and existing busi ness mo men tumhas
been es sen tial.
We launched the In sti tutes corporate training ac tiv i ties in
1993 and watched them grow at a rate of 70% per year for four
years. While jug gling four training and in ter na tion al consulting di-
vi sions, with all the strategic part ners and players that im plies, we
remain focused on the foundation of all our work: the inside job.
When we contracted for this book and agreed to a com-
ple tion date, we thought: Whoa! Well need a time shift to get
all this ac com plished and maintain personal balance. Since the
book was frst published, HeartMath merged with a pub lish ing
and mul ti me dia company, further pushing the en ve lope in our
re la tion ship with time.
What do we mean by a time shift? Time shifting could time shift time shift
sound like a con cept out of the movie Back to the Future or an- Back to the Future Back to the Future
oth er time-warp ing movie. The sense we mean is far more prac-
ti cal yet profound. Time shifting is survival in the Internet age. It
de scribes an in ter nal state so coherent that your per cep tion of
timeand your ability to shape itchanges dra mat i cal ly. Ev ery
time you catch yourself before falling into a neg a tive re ac tion,
you have time shifted. Ev ery time you stop long enough to fnd
an in tu i tive solution in stead of rushing ahead im pul sive ly, you
have time shifted. Ev ery time you allow your in tu i tive in tel -
li gence to pro pel you out of inertia or con fu sion, you have time
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 84
Time, Expectations, and Other Things Its Diffcult to Manage [ 85 ]
shifted. If you arrive at a solution to a diffcult per son al or or ga -
ni za tion al issue in fve minutes in stead of fve hours, you have
time shifted. You have jumped out of the self-lim it ing men tal
fre quen cy that says, Cer tain things just take time, into a new
di men sion. Time shift ing means moving past standard lin ear
time fows. Staying in the Now, more aware and sensitive to
whatever is go ing on would be effcient use of time. We call this
being present. Most people, how ev er, at any giv en time, have present present
a percentage of their thoughts assigned to re liv ing the past or
projecting into the fu ture. Not having enough time, especially
with the crush of information over load, is a high-rank ing source
of stress yet most peo ple do not stay as present as they could. By
learn ing how to stay present, time is used more ef f cient ly and
stress over load is great ly reduced.
Some would say, There is an objective reality to time; 24
hours in each day, no more, no less. Yet your perception and
ef fec tive ness in regard to time clearly changes as your per cep -
tion changes. Love what you are do ing and time fies. Hate
it and time stretches mad den ing ly. Stay stuck in an in ef f cient
thought loop, and your ef fec tive ness within a given time span
can diminish dramatically.
Many problems people have fnally do resolve but not be-
fore they have used up a lot of precious time. For example, two
staff argue over patient treatment. After the ar gu ment they each
re play the un com fort able incident over and over. In an ef fort to
feel jus ti fed, they may tell someone else about it, mak ing their
points about what they said and why. Lat er in the day, the mind
begins to run out of gas and new thoughts like per haps I was a
little too emotional in that ex change or I wish that hadnt hap-
pened. I really do like her start to arise. Soon, a more ob jec tive
review of the argument comes on-screen and a desire to apolo-
gize or make things right starts to dom i nate the mental process.
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 85
[ 86 ] From Chaos to Coherence
The next day, the apology is made and both par ties feel a re-
lease. Things go back to nor mal and balance is re gained.
In this case, what if effciency and effectiveness had been
di min ished by 10, 20, or even 50% during the hours this person
com plained and re sented? His use of time clearly was not ef f -
cient, and emotional mis man age ment was the culprit. Learn ing
to Freeze-Frame and neutralize the petty an noy anc es and dis-
turbances saves enor mous loads of energy and, in this ex am ple,
could have shifted this scene in the movie of life ahead several
hours. A time shift.
How many situations face you each day where time feels
like the en e my or at least a hun gry competitor for your san i ty
and sense of bal ance? Snap ping
out of a judgmental thought
pro cess causes a time shift.
Catching yourself re play ing the
same inner di a logue over and
overand stopping itcauses
a time shift. We mean this liter-
ally. Your re la tion ship to time
fun da men tal ly shifts when
you engage heart intelligence
in stead of relying sole ly on the
mind. Scientists on the edge
pro pose an elastic view of time,
that in an ex pand ing uni verse,
time is stretch ing. We know
the sense of sat is fac tion that
comes when weve completed
a diffcult as sign ment, or made
it through a troubling con ver -
sa tion with min i mal emo tion al
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
use freeze-frame
several times a day
F
reeze-Frame brings
increased co her ence to
the au to nom ic ner vous sys tem,
en hanc ing hor mon al and im-
mune system bal ance and car dio -
vas cu lar ef f cien cy. Freeze-Frame
helps to max i mize your co her -
ence, bal ance, poise, and men tal
clar i ty. Practice Freeze-Frame
dur ing tran si tion times from
home to work, when chang ing
be tween dif fer ent tasks at work,
from work to home. Try it fve
times a day for a month and see
what hap pens.
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 86
Time, Expectations, and Other Things Its Diffcult to Manage [ 87 ] [ 87 [ 87
tur moil. We enjoy the next span of time in f nite ly more than had
the issue not re solved.
Time Wizards
Some of the most effective peo ple are those who are not im pris -
oned by in com plete per spec tives of time. They are the ones who
say, Why are we rush ing this decision? Their pa tience usu-
ally pays off. They also are the ones who, at other times, can be
quite decisive and in tu itive ly recognize the im por tance of quick
action be cause of how much time and en er gy could be saved
by not delaying. The emo tion al ly in tel li gent people recognize
the ob jec tive reality of time but deep ly understand how easily
its grip on our per cep tions can be loos ened and transformed.
Temporal alchemy.
When faced with ob vi ous ly con fict ing pri or i ties that
can not pos si bly be ac complished in the time frame, what
al ter na tive is there other than mind-numb ing stress? The frst
thing is to as sume there is a solution that can be achieved once is is
you get in ter nal ly coherent enough to per ceive it. Internal co-
southwest time
H
igh performance teams seem to operate in a parallel uni verse of
time and effectiveness. South west Airlines is a mod el of or ga ni z-
a tion al co her ence. Time ef f cien cy is one of their bot tom-line out comes
and their on-time per for mance beats the com pe ti tion every year. They
have time shifted into a new di men sion of effectiveness that their cus-
tomers love and their com pet i tors envy. When you watch many oth er
airlines per form the same tasks, it is easy to see a marked con trast.
Internal co her enceloving what they are doing and hav ing fun do ing
itis the spring board for time ef f cien cy at South west.
southwest time
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 87
[ 88 ] From Chaos to Coherence
her ence is the priority and can lead to sur pris ing time saving
con ve nience. Speed with balance.
Time Convenience
The number of conveniences that occurred for us once the
de ci sion was made to produce a fnished manuscript in nine
monthswhile maintaining a 5060 hour "regular job" work
weekhave been amazing. Meetings to dis cuss the con tent and
di rec tion of the book occurred just at the right time on sev er al
oc casions, saving us con sid er able energy and time. A key client,
for ex am ple, post poned two ses sions at a time when we need ed
ex tra writ ing time. Two free writing days resulted. Two divisions
of another client independently decided im por tant meet ings
should be held on the same day, saving several hours of trav el
time. We scheduled more than 60 book daysun break able
ap point mentsand informed staff members we were un avail -
able those days. Life be came more coherent as we did. Balanc-
ing all these pri or i ties became a daily chal lenge and a game to
mas ter.
Then another reality set in: The rapid growth of our busi-
ness made it increasingly diffcult to put consistent qual i ty
time into writ ing. Many is sues came up re gard ing our re struc -
tur ing and new stra te gic direction that required input. To keep
say ing, We are work ing on the book, was starting to sound
hollow and even a bit ir re spon si ble. And yet our con tract with
the publisher had a fxed date. The only pos si bil i ty was to re-
quest a sig nif cant extension, de spite con cern that publication
of the book would be delayed for a full season. Meanwhile, the
publisher had in de pen dent ly realized the fol low ing season
would be better any way, so an extension was will ing ly grant ed.
Time had shifted, and the shift occurred because of an internal
at ti tude shift that acknowledged that, in the name of bal ance,
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 88
Time, Expectations, and Other Things Its Diffcult to Manage [ 89 ]
life had to shift.
What are some of the key attitudes and internal per cep -
tions un der ly ing your problems with time? How do you man-
age something as ab so lute and un con trol la ble as time? The frst
point is to remember the obvious: time itself is un man age able.
What you can manage is your perception of it and the events can can
with in it. Pon der deeply on this. Nu mer ous pro grams exist to
help us gain mastery over time and many sys tems offer prac-
ti cal for mats and guide lines. Yet the mastery peo ple need is over
in ef f cient thoughts, judgments, and ex pec ta tions.
Expectations
Few things can devastate per son al or professional re la tion ships
and in ner peaceor cause a bigger drain on your mental and
emotional balanceas much as unmet expectations. The raise
we ex pect ed to get, the rec og ni tion we expected to get, the
com mit ments we ex pect our colleagues to keep, the qual i ty of
work we are ex pect ed to pro duceall of these unmet ex pec -
ta tions and our reactions to them can gen er ate a stream of dis-
ap point ed thoughts and feel ings. These emotions so eas i ly can
move into a torrent of frustration, resentment, and anger, all of
which affect pro duc tiv i ty at every level of life. We f nal ly re al ize
we have to neu tral ize expectations if we want to enjoy life.
The problem is how easy reactions are to justify. After all, how easy reactions are to justify how easy reactions are to justify
you ex pect ed to be treated a cer tain way: any rational per son ex pect ed ex pect ed
would have expected the same treatment, you tell yourself and
anyone who will sympathize. The free-agent economyMe,
Inc., and all its variationshave created unspoken ex pec ta tions
of entitlement, expectations that are almost im pos si ble to con-
sistently meet.
Ex pectations often are based on some form of idealism.
They set us up for dis ap point ment and allow for no new pos si -
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 89
[ 90 ] From Chaos to Coherence
bil i ties to emerge. When reality does not match your men tal im-
age, the gap between your expectation and the per vad ing reality
creates a tension that can be hard to re lease. The paper wealth
catapulting employees net worth into the strato sphere brings
with it post-IPO depression when the share price dives. Super-
charged emotional expectation is the cause. If you could re lease
or trans mute the ten sion, you could move on quick ly and adapt
to the new re al i ty. In fact, the new re al i ty might turn out to be
bet ter than the one we ex pect ed, but if we see things through
old mental models about the way things have to be, we are cut
off from new possibilities. Tough to do in the high-speed, hyper-
competitive new economy.
If your expectations have become crystallized, it takes emo-
tion al adapt abil i ty and fex i bil i ty to regain balance and se cu ri ty. In
the ab sence of such powerful intelligence, the emo tion al res i due of
the ex pec ta tion lingers, cre at ing the per fect opportunity for dis ap -
point ment, the pri ma ry by-prod uct of ex pec ta tion. At a more sub tle
lev el, dis ap point ment is a con ve nient hid ing place for judg ments.
You judge people, plac es, is sues,
and your self for not meet ing
your ex pec ta tions. You say you
were not judging, you were just
dis ap point ed about the sit u a-
tion. But, if you looked deep er,
you might fnd that judg ment
was at the root of your dis ap -
point ment.
A team member you re-
spect promises a report by 3:
00. By 4:00, noth ing; 4:30, still
noth ing; 5:30, not even a hint.
At 5:45 the report f nal ly ar-
rives via e-mail, putting you
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
manage your manage your
feelings around
unmet ex pec ta tions
S
can your awareness
regularly for sub tle as well
as overt ex pec ta tions of your self
and oth ers. Con sid er how to stay
emo tion al ly bal anced if things
do not work out as ex pect ed. Will
all life as we know it really expire
if the ex pec ta tion is not fulflled?
Prob a bly not.
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 90
Time, Expectations, and Other Things Its Diffcult to Manage [ 91 ]
badly behind sched ule on your project. You say you are not mad,
just dis ap point ed that this person was not as re spon si ble as she
should be. Some where in this example a judg ment is lurk ing. If
you could see a tran script of the thoughts and feeling you had
between 3:15 and 5:45 it would reveal a lot about how ex pec -
ta tion led to judgment and then to dis ap point ment. When the
team member who was late tells you her child had fall en down
at school and cut his hand, requiring stitch es, and that she was
called to the school to take the child home and just for got to call
to say the re port would be late, you quickly for give her, but the
dam age of ex pec ta tion has al ready been done to your body and
your men tal and emo tion al energy reserves.
As the broken ex pec ta tion lingers, a lot of en er gy is used
to sus tain the dis ap point ment, energy no long er available for
pro duc tive activities. Your mind is pre oc cu pied, the in ter nal
di a logue races, and time once again is the enemy. Your phys i -
ol o gy slides deeper into in co her ence, making it hard er still to
shift per spec tive. Your cells actually age. It does not have to be
this way.
In the process of in creas ing your internal self-manage-
ment through heart in tel li gence, scan your aware ness regularly
for sub tle as well as overt expectations of your self and others on
your team or in your family. Con sid er how to stay emo tion al ly
neu tral if things do not work out as ex pect ed. Deeper man-
age ment of ex pec ta tions re quires un der stand ing the ex cite ment
that often spawns them and where it originates. Many sce nar i os
would tell the story equal ly well, but the sales pro cess pro vides a
con ve nient model.
Ratios
We both have known many sales peo ple who were ex cel lent at
at tract ing a buyers interest but then, in their overenthusiasm
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 91
[ 92 ] From Chaos to Coherence
over the po ten tial of a large sale, short-circuited the process.
In the long run, they lost more sales than they made. Each time
this happened, the dis ap point ment grew, mak ing the ex pec -
ta tion for the next sale even harder to manage. This kind of neg-
a tive feedback loop can be dev as tat ing to self-confdence. Many
good sales peo ple give up be cause of the dis ap point ment from
unmet expectations about the sure thing.
Successful salespeople know about ratios: Some deals
close, some do not. As long as the ratio stays con sis tent with
their goals, ev ery thing is fne. They in tu itive ly know that over-
ex cite ment about po ten tial sales cre ates the per fect breed ing
ground for fail ure. Sales peo ple with a bal anced in ter nal atti-
tude un der stand the unpredictability of life, so such people can
bounce back quick ly even when the sure thing evap o rates.
The concept of ratios is cen tral to rapid progress in in-
ter nal self-man age ment. First you use it to balance your own
ex pec ta tions, then apply it to oth er ar eas. You may make rap id
progress in stopping the leak of a long-standing mental habit,
then feel your progress sty mied when a tough sit u a tion causes
you to lose your cool. You feel like you slid backward be cause
you reacted negatively, and then you judge your self for the slip.
Slipping does not negate the genuine progress you made. What
you do next in your internal attitude, however, sets the stage for next next
either more progress or in er tia. Los ing hope, be com ing de spon -
dent, or doubt ing yourself will leak mas sive quantities of en er gy
and intelligence. Appreciating the in creas ing ratios of time you Appreciating Appreciating
already spent in greater co her ence provides a booster for sus-
tain ing them, especially when chal lenged. Un der stand ing ratios
helps you have sensible ex pec ta tions about people, your self,
and your work in stead of de mand ing ab so lute per fec tion and
being con tin u ous ly dis ap point ed.
We have learned, from per son al experience, the need to
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 92
Time, Expectations, and Other Things Its Diffcult to Manage [ 93 ]
stay bal anced and positive while keeping energy-draining ex-
pec ta tions to an absolute min i mum.
This attitude of allowing life and people to be their un pre -
dict able selves, while main-
tain ing a positive inner at-
ti tude that has security ei ther
way, can bring ever-in creas ing
rates of success, per son al ly
and professionally. What an
iro ny: manage ex pec ta tions
and watch them be surpassed.
And if they are not, you have
accumulated ex tra energy to
move on to the next po ten tial.
Become over ly crystallized
and at tached to a po ten tial
out come and you block a
more pos i tive po ten tial from
un fold ing.
Much of the noise and
in co her ence in organizations
to day re sults from over prom -
is ing and underdelivering. In
your en thu si asm to convince a
buy er of the val ue of your prod-
uct or a col league of the value of
an idea, it is easy to set ex pec -
ta tions at un reach able lev els.
Overenthusiasm based in the
minds need for stim u la tion is
the real cul prit. The great est
an ti dote is build ing more ac-
sales
turnaround
A
regional offce of a large
computer reseller saw its
rev e nues and customer sat-
is fac tion plum met over a six-
month pe ri od, going from $5
mil lion per month in rev e nues
to $1 million per month. Things
got so bad they even had a streak
of 34 consecutive proposals lost.
A com pre hen sive HeartMath
pro gram was instituted for all
125 people in the di vi sion, along
with special strategy ses sions
with the management team,
sales team, and executive coach-
ing. In creas ing personal and or-
ga ni za tion al coherence was the
target so the company could at-
tract and keep good cus tom ers.
Six months after the program
was launched, during one three-
week period the frm won $45
million in new con tracts.
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 93
[ 94 ] From Chaos to Coherence
cep tance and ap pre ci a tion for
what is. A self-se cure per son
knows it is much smart er to un-
derpromise and overdeliver, but
it takes in ner se cu ri ty to hold
true to that per spec tive. Es pe -
cial ly when the hype ma chine
blares from TV sets, ban ner ads
and spam.
Freeze-Frame is a great
tool to scan your inner radar
screen for sim mer ing ex pec -
ta tions in your self or those you
could have cre at ed in others.
As soon as you do this scan-
ning, you will be gin to get a
pic ture of how much more
en er gy and in tel li gence you
could have avail able.
Judgmentalness
Another signifcant energy drain already mentioned is be-
ing judg men tal. Judgment of others or yourself results from
as sess ments made with out ben e ft of heart in tel li gence. They
of ten re sult from an over ac tive mind siz ing up a person
or sit u a tion based on lim it ed or emo tion al ly dis tort ed in for -
ma tion. Judg ments have no payoff. They throw your sys tem
out of bal ance phys i o log i cal lyin fact, you are most vul ner a ble
to be ing judg men tal when op er at ing at a def cit emo tion al ly.
Be ing judg men tal drives a wedge be tween your self and the
per son you are judg ing. Judg ments of one self are par tic u lar ly
in sid i ous, cloaked as they are in the robes of self-im prove -
understand the
science of ratios
U
nderstanding the con cept
of ra tios will accelerate
your progress in in ter nal self-
man age ment. First use it to bal-
ance your own expectations. Ap-
preciate all the good already in
your life, even though one thing
didnt work out. Then, ap ply it
to oth er areas. Ap pre ci at ing the
in creas ing ratio of times youve
spent in great er coherence pro-
vides a boost er, es pe cial ly when
chal lenged. Its not about being
perfect. Its about im prov ing on
the ra tios.
understand the
G
e
t
C
o
he
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n
t
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 94
Time, Expectations, and Other Things Its Diffcult to Manage [ 95 ]
ment. We judge our selves over a stupid mis take, not being
quick enough on our feet, not being con f dent in the cli ent
presentation. We say we are not im prov ing, or we fear an un-
changed pat tern will doom us per son al ly or pro fes sion al ly,
all the while drain ing our emo tion al re serves and lim it ing
the po ten tial for growth. We judge oth ers be cause their be-
hav ior fails to match our ex pec ta tions, but all too of ten,
when over stressed or overrushed, we default to judg ment
at the frst sight of a cer tain per son or be fore even read ing the
bosss e-mail. At our most im ma ture, we feed judg ments based
on gen der, race, gen er a tion, pro fes sion, or ac a dem ic back-
ground. The big se cret is this:
ev ery one else is do ing the
same thing to themselves!
In all these cases, judg-
ment drains and robs us of
the clar i ty need ed to build
re la tion ships or take decisive
ac tion. While it can seem stim-
u lat ing, even fun, to judge,
judgmentalness ac tu al ly con-
sumes tre men dous quan ti ties
of en er gy. Its only use ful ness
is as a wake-up call, let ting
us know we let unmanaged
emo tion cloud per cep tion
while ac cel er at ing our ag ing.
Ap pre ci at ing that we spot ted
the judg ment, then quick ly
neu tral iz ing the unmanaged
emo tion, can re store balance
and full in tel li gence.
under-promise
and over-deliver
I
n this age of hype and hyper-
competition, the noise of
out land ish guarantees can be
deaf en ing. Over-enthusiasm
based on the minds need for
stim u la tion is the real culprit.
By building more acceptance
and appreciation for what is,
youll gain a sense of balance
and ma tu ri ty that will feel sol id
to you and those around you. A
self-se cure person knows it is
much smarter to un der-promise
and over-de liv er. It takes inner
se cu ri ty to hold true to that per-
cep tion.
under-promise
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 95
[ 96 ] From Chaos to Coherence
Judgment is one of the
most pervasive drains on the
plan et. Judg ment underlies
all ethnic, ra cial, and regional
con fict. It un der lies teams
re fus ing to co op er ate with
oth ers, stra te gic alliances and
mergers gone bad, executives
over ly crit i cal of sub or di nates,
even nations out to de stroy a
neigh bor. Of ten the judgment
seems jus ti fed, based on past
ex pe ri ence. This was a take-
over, not a merger. The mind
con structs its mem o ry of a
past abuse, then carefully pro-
tects its vi a bil i ty. Judg ments
rare ly re treat with out a fght,
so deep ly em bedded can they
be in our men tal, emotional,
and cel lu lar make up.
Heart intelligence, ac-
ti vat ing positive emotional
states to yield in creased in tu i-
tive un der stand ing, can pop
the bal loon of judgment so
we re gain balance. Once their
fangs have been re moved,
judg men tal at ti tudes can be
seen as mere ly the in ef f cient prod uct of mental-emo tion al im-
bal ance. Neu tral iz ing judg ment will not rob you of the power to
dis crim i nate, as sess, or eval u ate. In fact, once the judg men tal
mind is rec og nized, clar i ty, bal ance, and poise all can in crease.
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
stop judgmental stop judgmental
at ti tudes
W
e defne judgmentalness
as the tendency to make
as sess ments of peo ple or sit u a-
tions without the beneft of com-
passion or un der stand ing from
the heart. Judgmental at ti tudes
drive a wedge be tween you and
that which you are judg ing. Real-
ize these judg men tal attitudes
are often based on misperception
or lack of in for ma tion. De spite
the fact that the tendency to
be judg men tal is culturally in-
grained from an early age, there
is wisdom in learning to un learn
this pattern. Use Freeze-Frame to
catch judgmental at ti tudes and
neutralize the ef fects by asking
your heart for a more complete
perspective. Ex tra credit: avoid
the trap of judg ing your self for
catching your self in a judgmental
at ti tude.
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 96
Time, Expectations, and Other Things Its Diffcult to Manage [ 97 ] [ 97 [ 97
Dynamic Balance Dynamic Dynamic
For those of us who love to work at high speed and pride our-
selves on be ing able to thrive under pressure, the no tion of
bal ance could seem cute but frankly rather bland and un pro - bal ance bal ance
duc tive. So think of high-wire artists. Clear ly these per form ers
un der stand the im por tance of balance; in fact, for them it is a
life-and-death is sue. They must make hun dreds of mi cro-ad-
just ments to stay bal anced on the wire and keep their nerves,
anxiety, and vi su al dis trac tions from ru in ing their day. Balance
is key, but there is no lack of ad ven ture, ex cite ment, or risk. In
fact, with out bal ance their fun would be a one-shot thing. with out with out
Look at balance from an oth er perspective. In the 1960s
and 1970s, a great Amer i can track star, Lee Evans, set world re-
cords in the 400 meter, 500 meter, 600 meter, and 1,600 meter
relay and many oth er distances. Many of these records were
not bro ken until the 1980s. In his track days, Lee was known as
an ex treme ly hardworking athlete, but what set him apart was
some thing dif fer ent. Lee was not the most grace ful run ner, but
he had learned that to go fast er, the an swer was not to tense up,
but to re lax more deep ly. While run ning, he would tell him self
to relax and fnd a more fow ing style; he would ac cel er ate and
win near ly ev ery race. A deep er lev el of bal ance helped him fnd
more speed and grace.
2
A third analogy is a high performance car. For a Ferrari to
pick up speed, you need to shift gears intelligently. Each time
you shift gears, the en gine is able to run more ef f cient ly so
you can drive fast er with less wear and tear on the engine. High
per for mance cars like a Ferrari need constant tuning so that a
dy nam ic balance is main tained and high er speed is pos si ble.
With out constant aligning and balancing of the engine, the
wheels, proper fuel and vital fu ids, the car runs poorly or, worse
yet, can spin out of con trol. Speed still is the ob jec tive, but bal-
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 97
[ 98 ] From Chaos to Coherence
ance is the way to achieve it.
Pay ing at ten tion to the cars
need for adjusting is a con-
stant priority.
Think about how these
analogies relate to your day
or your organization: Are
you rac ing to get more done,
while causing in creas ing wear
and tear? Could you cre ate
personal strategic mo ments
to slow down, step back, and
discover a more bal anced,
effcient way to get the job
donewith less strain on you?
What effect might that have on
your sense of time, your pro-
duc tiv i ty, your re la tion ships,
or the qual i ty of your com mu -
ni ca tion? Where is the organi-
zation picking up friction by
going too fast without checking the oil, refueling, and re-strat-
egizing? Yes, speed mat ters in the new economy. Chal lenge your
assumption that speed and frenzy are the same thing.
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
innovatetry innovatetry
balance
B
alance is a dynamic state
of max i mum fexibility,
not a bland un pro duc tive state
of me di oc ri ty. Balance requires
mo ment-by-moment re-cal i -
bra tion to changing con di tions,
attitudes, and op por tu ni ties.
Bal ance is unique for each
person. True bal ance means
internal dis tor tion is minimized
so your full intelligence is max-
i mized. A high-wire artist is a
prime ex am ple of balance in
the midst of adventure and risk.
Dont mis take boredom for bal-
ance.
06 CH 6 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:54 PM 98
DYNAMIC DYNAMIC 2
COHERENT COMMUNICATION
1. Achieving understanding frst is essential for effective com mu -
ni ca tion. How easy it is to think we understand the views of a
customer, colleague, or constituent without truly know ing.
2. Listening nonjudgmentally allows full intelligence and un der -
stand ing to unfold. It requires careful attention to mind-sets
about people and ourselves. High speed judgments of others
block full understanding of their point of view.
3. Listening for the essence of a communication means hearing Listening for the essence Listening for the essence
deeply the core message without being distracted by the
superfcial tone or quality.
4. Authentic dialogue brings increased clarity and reduces the
noise in any system. Heart-based authenticity represents an
in tel li gent trans for ma tion of unmanaged diatribe, an tag o nism,
or with hold ing.
[ 99 ]
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 99
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 100
c h a p t e r
7
Authentic Communication:
Its Time for Some
Serious Consideration
ORGANIZATIONS TODAY ARE CHOKING ON MYRIAD
communication problemsfrom confict avoidance to systems
confusion to sheer information overload to male-female pos-
turing and wariness. In an era when the primary reason people
leave their jobs is the inability to get along with their supervisor,
improving communication rapidly is becoming a personal and
strategic necessity. What is missing? An obvious answer would
be the heart. But, again, we do not mean just that communic-
ation needs more sentiment or emotion. Rather, compassion,
mature understanding, and intuitive sensitivity are needed to
transform the communication distortions we experience daily.
We need some real conversations.
Authentic communication implies listening and speaking
with sincerity, security, and balance. Using your own voice and
deeply respecting the voicethe heartof the other. It implies
a fullness, a completeness, a directness to ones communication
that arises from the core of oneself, not the storefront. As Rob-
ert Frost said, Something we were withholding made us weak,
until we found out it was ourselves. Sincerity is the oil that
lubricates communication, dissolving the metallic friction so
prevalent in this information-inundated world. Security arises
[ 101 ]
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 01/06/04, 3:58 PM 101
[ 102 ] From Chaos to Coherence
from a core know ing that everything is okay; its Latin roots
mean without fear. Balance provides the self-calibration so
heart intelligence is the core frequencythe central operating
sys temguid ing how we speak and listen.
If organizations would ever muster up the courage to
mea sure the lost pro duc tiv i ty and stress generated because of mea sure mea sure
the un ex pressed con cerns, fears, and an tag o nism present, they
would be shocked. The gap between what most peo ple feel and feel feel
what they say is huge and cost ly. National surveys in the United say say
States sug gest 70% of employees are afraid to speak up at work.
(In some other coun tries, this per cent age is far higher.
1
)
We have trained ourselvesand most or ga ni za tions abet
this train ing implicitlyto speak in a voice other than our own.
As a young actor I would occasionally muse what it would be
like to have a career in which you were paid to be yourself. I did
quite nicely putting on the per so nas of various characters, but
al ways talked in the voic es of others. Sure, I came through
the character, but I was always aware of the flters, the masks,
through which I spoke. I ro man ti cized about work ing in the cor-
po rate world and be ing paid to be myself. Soon after leav ing
the the ater in the late 70s I learned just how naive I was. I be gan
to see frsthand how much peo ple feel they must com pro mise
them selves, in the name of busi ness. A website, which then
be came a book and a movementThe Cluetrain Manifesto Cluetrain Manifesto Cluetrain Manifesto
sees the Em per ors new clothes, and isnt afraid to speak up.
We dont believe what were saying at work. We know no one else
be lieves it either. But we keep saying it because because because be-
cause the needles stuck. The records broken. Be cause we just cant
stop. Because who would we be if we didnt talk like that?
2
We are not advocating a free-for-all of truth telling for its own
sake; in fact, that can be quite de struc tive in an emo tion al ly im-
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 102
Authentic Communication [ 103 ]
ma ture en vi ron ment. Some use
au then tic i ty, or being a straight
shooter, as a mask for unman-
aged emotion and judg ment.
Real authenticity is not re-
ac tion; it is expression from the
corethe core of com pas sion,
un der stand ing, and in tu ition.
Nor is au then tic i ty soft or tenta-
tive. The fail ure to be au then tic
and the resulting in co her ence
is cost ing more than we want
to know. How do you feel when you you
you fail to speak up over an in-
sen si tive decision, know ing your
courage could be greeted with
blackballing and iso la tion?
What ex am ples in your pro-
fes sion al career have you seen
where the failure to ad dress
an issue proved costly? There
are some trag ic examples. The prob lem with the O-rings in the
space shut tle Challenger was known prior to launch. Fail ure to
speak forthrightlyand for that com mu ni ca tion to be heard
cost the lives of the entire crew. Ev ery day in or ga ni za tions
around the world, peo ple no tice things that could be cost ly, but no tice no tice
often out of fear, many of these observations go un ex pressed.
The personal guilt and self-blame you can ex pe ri ence for not
speak ing up can haunt you for years.
Any book on organizational theory states the obvious: Ef-
fec tive com mu ni ca tion is essential for successful re la tion ships
and suc cess ful or ga ni za tions. But we are sug gest ing something
achieve
understanding frst
I
f your mental engine is
revving too fast, you can
jump to con clu sions or make
as sump tions that could be
com plete ly wrong. Discipline
your selfespecially in the face
of unpleasant news, ru mors,
or delicate personal issuesto
make sure you un der stand what
a customer, colleague, or friend
really means, rath er than un-
der stand ing just what they are
saying. What people mean and
what they say may not be the
same thing, particularly when
people are under pressure.
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 103
[ 104 ] From Chaos to Coherence
much deep er: authentic, essence lev el com mu ni ca tion that
catapults speak er and listener into a new di men sion of clarity,
resonance, and entrainment.
Is authentic communication merely an interpersonal
im per a tive between us and our colleagues or between man-
age ment and em ploy ees (not that this is exactly easy to ac com -
plish)? Dont our cus tom ers want the same truth and di rect ness
we hope for in our close re la tion ships? The Web has opened
up conversations like never before in hu man history. Ev ery -
thing your or ga ni za tion is doingor not doingis grist for the
mill for some chat room or listserv and myriad other forms of
impartial, in stan ta neous communication. Again the Cluetrain
pro vo ca teurs:
Marketing has been training its practitioners for de cades in the art of
im per son at ing sincerity and warmth. But marketing can no longer
keep up appearances. People talk. They get on the Web and they let
the world know that the happy site with the smiling puppy masks a
company with coins where its heart is supposed to be. They tell the
world that the company that prom is es to make you feel like royalty
doesnt reply to e-mail messages and makes you pay the shipping
charg es when you return their crappy mer chan dise. The market will
fnd out who and what you are. Count on it.
Thats why you poison your own well when you lie. You break trust
with your own people as well as your cus tom ers. You may be able to
win back the trust youve blown, but only by speak ing in a real voice,
and by en gag ing peo ple rather than delivering messages to them.
3
Underlying these fundamentals is the deep principle that
to au then ti cal ly communicate with others requires self-honesty
and in creas ing levels of self-maturity. Authentic communica-
tion starts with listening to yourself, especially the sometimes
chal leng ing prompt ing of your heart. So many things in life can
convince people to justify their reactions, throwing them back
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 104
Authentic Communication [ 105 ]
into fear or insecurity. Freeze-Frame and neutral are two tools
to bring you back to bal ance and help you become more deeply
aware of what you are feel ing, the consequences of these feel-
ings, and possible true-to-your self solutions.
Electric Communication
Some re search ers sug gest that our com pre hen sion of a con ver -
sa tion is only minimally based on the words ex pressed. As much
as 58% of our un der stand ing is due to our in ter pre ta tion (per-
ception) of body lan guage, 35% on our per cep tion of the lan guage lan guage tone
of voice, with only 7% based on our in ter pre ta tion of the of voice of voice words
themselves. Obviously, this leaves lots of room for mis un der -
stand ing and in co her ence.
What a radiant person she is! He has such magnetism
and pres ence. The room was electric as she announced the
plans for next year. These and other phrases reveal a deep in-
tu i tive un der stand ing that com mu ni ca tion is not just auditory
but also vi su al; and it is electromagnetic. Research has dem- and and
on strat ed that the heart produces an electromagnetic feld that
can be measured at least ten feet from the body using cur rent
technology. As soon as you come within ten feet of some one
else, your felds interact. (Another rea son why crowd ed subways
are so hard on the nerves?) Research has es tab lished that mea-
surable changes occur in the hearts feld, de pend ing on ones
emotional state: Frustration causes static in the feld, while
appreciation or care creates increasing levels of coherence in
the feld (see Figure 71).
So, while your words communicate one message, your
tone of voice another, and your body language yet another,
your own heart is radiating an undeniable, hard-to-hide elec-
trical mes sage. Quantum the o ry would sug gest that, although
the elec tri cal component of hu man communication may only
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 105
[ 106 ] From Chaos to Coherence
trans mit 10 or 12 feet, the quantum level knows no such lim i -
ta tions. Once again it is clear: We live in a sea of frequencies.
Information is ev ery where. We each broadcast and re ceive. The
clarity of the reception has ev ery thing to do with the clar i ty of
the receiveryou. Have you ever listened to someone a bit im-
pa tient ly, tried to speed the conversation along by fnishing the
speak ers sentence and letting him or her know you un der stood,
only to fnd out you were dead wrong and com plete ly missed
the point? Or if you cannot remember ever doing this, no doubt
it has been done to you and it drove you cra zy. Internal noise
from unmanaged emotional stress is one of the greatest inhibi-
tors of clear, effective, essence level com mu ni ca tion.
FIGURE 71 Feelings affect the information contained within the hearts elec-
tri cal signal, which is transmitted to all the cells in your body. The graph on
the left shows the noise created within the heart electrically when we ex pe -
ri ence a neg a tive emotional state such as frustration. It is called an in co her ent
pattern be cause the signals are distorted. The graph on the right shows the
co her ent elec tri cal patterns created by the heart during a positive emo tion al
state, in this case, ap pre ci a tion. Notice how the lines are clear, or dered, and
harmonious.
0 10 20 30
0.00
0.05
0.10
0.15
0.20
0.25
0.30
Frequency (Hertz)
ECG Frequency Spectrum
ECG Frequency Spectrum
0 10 20 30
Frequency (Hertz)
Frustration
Frustration
Appreciation
Appreciation
( Incoherent )
( Coherent )
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 106
Authentic Communication [ 107 ] [ 107 [ 107
The electrical signal radiated by the human heart is trans ferred be tween
people when they touch, as shown by these two graphs. Two subjects
were being measured simultaneously: Subject As brain waves and sub-
ject Bs elec tro car dio gram. The graphs on the left show their re spec tive
mea sure ments while sitting four feet apart. However, when they touch,
as shown in the graphs on the right, the electrocardiogram of subject B
appears in the brain wave pattern of sub ject A, showing a mea sur able
elec tri cal trans fer ence while the two touched.
Electricity of Touch
the electricity of touch
A
dditional research at the Institute has shown that, when touch ing
someone through a handshake or hug, a measurable trans fer ence
of elec tri cal en er gy between the two people takes place. Happy, sad, lov-
ing, or insecureit does not matter: Touching gen er ates an elec tri cal
trans fer ence. In fact, even close proximity be tween two peo ple registers
an elec tri cal effect, when people are as close as 18 inches.
4
If the hearts
electromagnetic feld acts as a carrier wave for emotional tur moil or
pos i tive feelings, we would be wise to pay closer attention to our at ti -
tudes and feelings. We may be affecting others more than we re al ize!
Copy right 1998 Institute of HeartMath Re search Center
the electricity of touch
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 107
[ 108 ] From Chaos to Coherence
Deep Listening
If deeper, more authentic communication with others is the
goal, how could you avoid starting with yourselfthe gut feel-
ings, the instinct, the still small voice within? How often do you
ignore an intuitive sense because the minds rationality or past
experience (that pesky amygdala) blocks the way? Re mem ber
that in tu i tive in tel li gence represents an un der de vel oped fre-
quen cy range with in each persons in tel li gence capacity. From quen cy range with in each persons in tel li gence capacity quen cy range with in each persons in tel li gence capacity
time to time you may get a fash of in sight or glimpse of the
obvious, but how random or un pre dict able these intuitions can
seem.
Attempting to listen to the intelligent voice of the heart
re quires prac tice, especially when the minds decibel level is
peak ing. But it is a practice that yields payoff in every di men sion
of life. Mastering lis ten ing to yourself is facilitated by disciplined
at tempts to do so. Freeze-Frame throughout your day and ask
yourself to pick up subtle signals telling you that some thing is
out of phase, some thing needs attention, I need to deal with so
and so. Pick spe cifc times in your day to scan the inner ra dar
screen for un at tend ed-to is sues or concerns. Ear ly mon i tor ing
during the daily commute, lunch, and other breaks are ex cel lent
times to step back, check the inner voice and re spond, save, or
delete. A major part of everyday stress re sults from failure to
lis ten to ones own intelligent input. Can you re call any times in
the past week, month, or even year when you kicked yourself for
not do ing something, or you regretted say ing some thing that in
your heart you knew was not ap pro pri ate? For most people, this
is fair ly common. If ex am ples are hard to come by, look for it in
others. Youll get the picture.
Listening to yourself as you would a child or a friend with a
prob lem can quickly increase compassion for yourself and then
for oth ers. Most peo ple have mastered one overused aspect of
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 108
Authentic Communication [ 109 ]
lis ten ingthe art of listening to their own self-judgment and
self-blaming. They play hours of per son al ized self-helpless
tapes, designed to imprison them in the familiarity of de spair
and unfulfllment. It requires a new, more compassionate focus
to be come neutral and quiet long enough to listen to a deeper
in tel li gence be neath the emotional pain or tur moil. Of course,
once you get adept at lis ten ing to yourself, au then tic action is
mandated from within. In the face of in tel li gent choic es, fail-
ure to act confrms the self-defeating behaviors you are try ing
to trans form. Acting from the heart represents a new level of
self-em power ment, a new platform from which to build more
in ter nal co her ence and more authentic communication.
Whether your role is to lead others or simply to lead your-
self, acute ly understanding what you are feeling and per ceiv ing
is the pre req ui site to understanding what others think and feel.
It is easy to master the store front we talked about. In a society
where looking good while feeling bad is hav ing ever more seri-
ous consequences, it is time to let the hearts wis dom guide our
actions. Start by paying clos er at ten tion to your subtle in ter nal
feelings. Attempt to verbalize them on paper or to close friends.
Never stop this pro cess if con tin u al growth and un fold ing your
in tel li gence is a goal. Shar ing ones deepest insights in vari ably
yields un ex pect ed clar i ty. In tel li gence is ev ery where.
Barriers
There are two types of barriers to effective, authentic com mu -
ni ca tion: en coding errors and decoding errors. Encoding in- Encoding Encoding
volves the meaning we as cribe to the communication we send;
decoding is the process of making mean ing out of what we hear. decoding decoding
Encoding errors occur when we as the speaker:
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 109
[ 110 ] From Chaos to Coherence
Are not clear what we want to say due to excessive emo-
tion al noise.
Do not know what we really mean.
Use words that have meaning only to us, with no clear
trans la tion for the listener.
Decoding errors occur when we as the listener:
Misinterpret the essence based on our perception of body
lan guage, tone, or words.
Form judgments about the speaker.
Listen at only the surface lev el.
Make an inappropriate match between what the speak er
is say ing and some pre vi ous experience.
Have so much internal noise that the signal we are listen-
ing to is drowned out.
4
Intuitive listening provides a technique for reducing these
er rors so greater coherence can be achieved.
Intuitive Listening
If you have taken a man age ment development, cus tom er ser-
vice, sales train ing, or parenting course, you probably learned
fun da men tals of good lis ten ing: steady eye contact, open recep-
tive body language, paraphrasing key points. All good storefront
com mu ni ca tion. Intuitive com mu ni ca tion im plies that a deeper
level of in tel li gence, ef f cien cy, and ef fec tive ness are at play
when you get past the mannequins in the win dow.
Good listening requires both the hardware and soft ware,
hearing and un der stand ing. There are three distinct levels of
lis ten ing:
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 110
Authentic Communication [ 111 ]
1. The word level is where much mis com mu ni ca tion hap-
pens. How many ar gu ments or mis un der stand ings are over the
words said and not the real meaning? The words them selves are
just the tip of the ice berg of the real com mu ni ca tion a per son
is try ing to make. Many times peo ple cannot fnd the words to
describe accurately what they want to say; others are sim ply not
adept with words, although they might com mu ni cate their feel-
ings in a very expressive way. What one person means by heart, heart heart
for ex am ple, could be totally dif fer ent than what someone else
means. Words are cages around fre quen cies. They are often
crude attempts to capture the essence of an idea and con vey it
with clarity and spec i fc i ty. They are nec es sary but not al ways
suffcient, and of ten the cause of con fu sion.
2. Beneath the words we speak is the feeling level, where a feeling level feeling level
deep er meaning can be found. We all have listened to peo ple
who were say ing one thing, but we thought they meant some-
thing quite dif fer ent. Feelings are an area most people are
un com fort able dis cuss ing, and clear differences exist be tween
men and women. Yet, this often is where re la tion ships are made
or lost. Feel ings of ten are ex-
pressed, es pe cial ly in busi ness
set tings, through tone of voice
and body lan guage. Less often
are they expressed au then -
ti cal ly.
3. The deepest level of
com mu ni ca tion is called the
es sence lev el. Re mem ber a es sence lev el es sence lev el
con ver sa tion with someone
in which you felt so in sync,
it was as though the person
knew ex act ly what you meant
practice
listening in tu itive ly
G
reat leaders hear the
meaning behind the words.
They are able to an tic i pate prob-
lems before they occur, and pay
at ten tion to feel ings, not just the
data. Focus in the heart and be
neutral to lis ten for sub tle sig nals
that could be easy to miss.
practice
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 111
[ 112 ] From Chaos to Coherence
or felt. This is very ef f cient com mu ni ca tion that cuts through
when words are in ad e quate or do not convey the deep est mean-
ing. Get ting to the essence saves time, fa cil i tates understanding,
and es tab lish es a true con nec tion.
Finding the essence means getting past the store front to
the stock room. What is on the shelves inside, is it organized, is it
carefully man aged? We are using this metaphor guardedly, not
so you actually will seek to un der stand the inventory in a con-
ver sa tion, but rather to in tu itive ly un der stand the core, the real
substance, un der neath the sur face.
There is no downside for seek ing to un der stand the es-
sence of an is sue or another
per sons point of view. While
it could sound time con-
sum ing, in tu i tive lis ten ing
has as its aim a tremendous
in crease in mu tu al respect,
un der stand ing, and en er gy ef-
f cien cy. By uti liz ing in tu i tive
in tel li gence, you op er ate out
of a deep part of your own es-
sence, which is why you more
easily can hear the es sence
of another per son or mes-
sage. Not only do speak er and
lis ten er feel better about the feel feel
ex change, co her ence is high er,
lead ing to cre ative so lu tions
that surpass what is pos si ble
when the air is flled with dis-
tor tion and con ten tion. In fact,
this type of com mu ni ca tion
is highly en er giz ing. When
listening as an
in no va tion tool
I
ts amazing how much more
creative and innovative
peo ple are when they feel heard
and ap pre ci at ed. Organizational
cul tures that pride themselves
on biting critiques of new
ideasoften masking an in tel -
lec tu al arroganceinhibit the
spirit of innovation that seeks
freedom, needs space to operate,
and will grow in value if ap pre -
ci at ed. Listen sincerely to new
ideas, honor the intention of the
originator, and, even if the idea
is premature or incomplete, en-
courage more!
listening as an
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 112
Authentic Communication [ 113 ]
you feel heard, es pe cial ly if the is sue is emo tion al ly charged, a
tre men dous re lease can occur, free ing up en er gy for more pro-
duc tive things.
Intuitive listening re quires being neutral or even pos i tive
emo tion al ly while lis ten ing to another person:
Try to feel appreciation for the other as a person, so you
see a full er pic ture, not just a limited view created by the
mes sage be ing delivered or an old memory you have.
This means allowing the person the time and space to
com plete thoughts without interrupting, judging, or rush-
ing.
It means giving your complete attention, not having your
mind on oth er tasks because you have so much to do.
It involves, when nec es sary, repeating what you believe to
be the es sence of what the other person has saidto make
sure the per son feels heardbefore re spond ing with your
per spec tive or opin ion.
It requires a measure of emotional maturity to not simply
re act de fen sive ly if the mes sage contains feed back for you.
From this foun da tion of ma tu ri ty, a deeper re la tion ship
can be built. For cus tom ers and cli ents this is es sen tial,
just as it is for friends and col leagues.
Each of these principles can and should be applied both
to our selves and to our communication with others. Several
years ago a new member of our staff was having a challenge
adapting to our unique organizational cul ture. An MBA with
extensive con sult ing ex pe ri ence on Wall Street, she found the
degree of co op er a tion, col lab o ra tion, and camaraderie appeal-
ing but some what dis con cert ing because of how different it was
from her previous highly competitive professional experiences.
At one point, she began grum bling about the dynamics within
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 113
[ 114 ] From Chaos to Coherence
the team. I asked if she would be willing to bring up the issue
open ly in a team meeting. She agreed, although it took some
cour age on her part. During the meeting she force ful ly shared
her con cerns, which related to a perceived gap be tween the se-
nior members and the junior ones, and the intense frus tra tion
this caused her to feel. I tried to listen nonjudgmentally (though
this was not entirely easy), re al iz ing I could have had the same
per spec tive be ing in her shoes. I locked in to the es sence of her
words, try ing not to get thrown by the emo tion al de liv ery (neu-
tral came in very handy). As I lis tened, I ap pre ci at ed her cour- tral tral
age for speak ing up and her anxiety over the gap she felt. But,
be fore making any com ments,
I made sure I had un der stood
the es sence by para phras ing it
back to her, then asked if I had
heard her cor rect ly. She threw
her arms up in the air and said,
Fi nal ly, some one has heard
me! The relief in her face and
body was tre men dous. Gone
was the ten sion, the fear, and
the in se cu ri ty that, if poorly
ex pressed, her words could
re sult in reprisal or iso la tion,
a com mon pat tern in so many
cor po rate en vi ron ments. I
con clud ed the ex change by
sug gest ing we talk off-line
to make sure I un der stood her
con cerns fully.
Here is where the power
of intuitive listening became
authentic
intranets?
P
eople want to talk. They
also want to be heard. The
Web is quench ing this thirst
for some, but many want to
talk open ly about your or ga -
ni za tionwhats working, whats
not; what wild, new ideas could
jumpstart the rocky new prod uct
launch; what attitudes in the cul-
ture would make peo ple want to
stay when the head hunt er calls.
Your intranet can be a place to
en cour age open con ver sa tions.
Dont try to con trol them. Fat
chance, any way. But do make a
sin cere ef fort to hear what theyre
trying to say.
authentic
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 114
Authentic Communication [ 115 ]
so pro found. While talking privately she realized that once she
f nal ly felt heard, it be came clear that most of the problem
was in her per cep tion. She thanked me for listening, and a bond
of open ness, se cu ri ty, and respect remains to this day.
Time after time, we have seen the power of intuitive in-
tel li gence trans form ordinary communication. Performance
reviews that nei ther party is look ing forward to, diffcult ne go -
ti a tions, client in ter ac tionsall these con tin u al ly become more
ful fll ing and ef f cient when in ter nal coherence is max i mized,
noise is reduced, and the heart provides the play ing feld.
A software company pres i dent from Australia of fered this
story:
Today, one day after I fnished the HeartMath program, I went into
what I ex pect ed to be one of the most diffcult negotiations of my
life. I was ne go ti at ing the [company name] distribution agreement,
which was like many agreements that I have negotiated in my life,
ex cept that this time I was ne go ti at ing with my life savings, re sult ing
in a not insignifcant in crease in pres sure. The agree ment that I
had received from [company name] about two months ago did not
re fect the true spirit of the agree ment that we had made on a hand-
shake, and I started to feel very conficted about this. From the dis-
tance of Australia, I felt that [com pa ny name] want ed to draw back
from the agreement that we had made verbally. Actions sub se quent
to my challenging the basic conditions of the agree ment were also
not helpful in changing my opinion that they were re neg ing. They
did not respond to phone calls or e-mail. Finally, and most criti-
cal, they did not send me a f nal draft of the contract as I re quest ed.
Hence, I had every rea son to expect the worst (from a nor mal busi-
ness point of view). Hav ing changed my per cep tu al po si tion with
respect to [company name], these were the smooth est negotiations
that I have ever been in. I Freeze-Framed often and poured love out
of my heart for the negotiators as often as I could. They con ced ed ev-
ery major point in the negotiations, about 15 in all, and only on one
point did they not con cede, which, from my point of view, was a mi-
nor con sid er ation. This negotiation went like clock work and major
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 115
[ 116 ] From Chaos to Coherence
issues like term of contract, continuity, ar bi tra tion procedures, and
quotas all fell the way that I wanted.
6
At frst glance it seems te dious to have to make sure you
un der stand the essence of what someone is saying. After all,
dont most people talk in slow, cir cu i tous sen tenc es anyway?
It is much more effcient to cut in and help the other person
clar i fy his or her thoughts, isnt it? Hooked on speed, al ways
rush ing to keep up, how easy it is to jus ti fy insensitive, in ef -
fec tive com mu ni ca tion, veiled as it is behind the screen of judg-
ment. The iro ny is how much havoc is cre at ed by the rushed
de ci sions and fran tic thought pro cess es we con vinced our selves
are es sen tial to our organization or ca reer.
Slowing the mental chat ter while neutralizing the emo-
tion al clat ter al lows the high speed refned intelligence of in tu -
ition to be heard. The heart has the power to neu tral ize run away
mental mis siles and disarm the emo tion al gre nades. As a side
beneft of lis ten ing in tu itive ly for the es sence, a study con duct ed
at Johns Hopkins Uni ver si ty showed that mar ried peo ple who
were able to ac cu rate ly sum ma rize the feel ings of their spouse
were able to low er blood pres sure.
Think of the great leaders of our time or a mentor who
made a last ing impact on you. We suspect a part of your heart
was awakened by the sin cere spir it of that person. Most like ly
the person had the gift or de vel oped the skill of deep lis ten ing,
and that depth in fused the words he or she spoke as well. The
power and authenticity of their ex pres sion seemed to res o nate
from a deep passion and knowingness.
Communication Webs
Another important di men sion is the coherence of a teams com-
mu ni ca tion with oth er parts of the or ga ni za tion, as well as the
net works of re la tion ships it is able to build outside its im me di ate
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 116
Authentic Communication [ 117 ] [ 117 [ 117
sphere. Main tain ing co herence within necessitates co her ence
with out. In one study at the Harvard Business School, the way
a team or unit was linked to oth ers had a dra mat ic effect on its
per for mance. In one mul ti na tion al elec tron ics com pa ny, for
ex am ple, the best con nect ed busi ness units were able to bring
prod ucts to mar ket 30% fast er than av er age.
7
As any one whos
ever talked on a cell phone or trans mit ted data through a mo-
dem knows, its one thing to be con nect ed, and quite an oth er
when that con nec tion is dis tort ed or in ter mit tent.
Or ga ni za tion al
Ap pli ca tions
The applications of coherent
communication to an or ga -
ni za tion are many.
Meetings. Before a meet-
ing starts, review the key
prin ci ples: listening non-
judgmentally, lis ten ing
for the es sence, achiev-
ing un der stand ing frst,
and speak ing au then -
ti cal ly. Write them on a
fip chart or grease board
as a re mind er. Sum-
ma rize key points of any
dis cus sion or pre sen -
ta tion to make sure the
whole group is in sync.
Con tin ue dis cuss ing
un til there is shared
clarity. An intact team
communication
leaps
M
any organizations have
seen measurable ben e fts
from ap ply ing tools of co her ent
com mu ni ca tion. At a glo bal en-
er gy com pa ny, a key stra te gic
team had only 14% of its mem-
bers feel ing meetings were well
or ga nized. After six months with
IQM tools, this fg ure had jumped
to 53%. Only 43% felt they lis-
tened to each oth er pri or to IQM
train ing, but six months later
73% felt lis ten ing was good. And
in this same team, only 57% felt
free to express them selves pri or
to IQM. Six months after the IQM
in ter ven tion, 93% felt free to ex-
press their views.
communication
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 117
[ 118 ] From Chaos to Coherence
from Hewlett-Packard used this pro cess to make sure
the an nounce ment of a new strategy was un der stood by
ev ery one. The an nounce ment took less than fve min-
utes to make but more than an hour to dis tin guish the
var i ous in ter pre ta tions from the real mes sage ex pressed.
Had they not taken this time, con sid er able un cer tain ty
and con fu sion would have re sult ed, wast ing many hours
and pos si bly cul mi nat ing in mis guid ed de ci sions. Has this
hap pened in your or ga ni za tion?
Phone conversations. Whether dealing with a customer,
ven dor, or patient, applying the principles of intuitive
lis ten ing and au then tic com mu ni ca tion helps ensure a
speed i er, mutually ben e f cial outcome that can be en-
er giz ing. Es pe cial ly when you have no body language
or other vi su al clues to rely on, focusing on keeping
yourself emo tion al ly neu tral or pos i tive while mak-
ing sure you hear the other per son is far less drain ing
than being judg men tal or making unfair or inaccurate
assumptions.
Performance reviews. Performance reviews are one of the
most emo tion al ly draining and commonly avoided or ga -
ni za tion al ac tiv i ties. Yet, they can be a rich op por tu ni ty for
growth. Au then tic com mu ni ca tion in this con text means
putting the per sons highest good as your pri ma ry ob-
jec tive. Make sure your appraisal allows ad e quate time for
the per sons as sets to be dis cussedand make sure the
per son hears your ap pre ci a tion, sin cere ly. Where feed-
back is necessary, make sure the tone is not judg men tal
but is supportive and direct. Using Freeze-Frame at the
start of this pro cess can neu tral ize or re duce anxiety while
cre at ing a stron ger feld for rap port in stead of an tag o nism.
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 118
Authentic Communication [ 119 ]
External relationships. Evaluate the quality of com mu ni c-
a tion be tween your team and other key di vi sions within
the organization. Where is coherence lack ing? Where
is it strong? Par tic u lar ly ex am ine any areas of ex tend ed
com mu ni ca tion where people have be come re signed to
in co her ence or an tag o nism. This is a high le ver age point
for boosting pro duc tiv i ty. Typ i cal ex am ples of hardened
re la tion ships in clude man u fac tur ing with mar ket ing, sales
with ac count ing, marketing with sales, and medical staff
with administration.
System noise. Continue to ask where there is noise in any
part of the system:
Sales people frustrated over level of services and sup-
port,
Administration staff inhibited by infrastructure or pro-
cess in ef f cien cies,
Production people resentful over design delays or con-
stant chang es,
Nurses stuck in a no-mans land between se nior man-
age ment preoccupation with shareholder (or board)
perception, and physician attitudes and patient expec-
tations.
Then ask your people what solutions they see, which
rec og nize the needs of the whole system: employee, man-
ag er, department, company and customer.
Fundamentally, beneath all the research and the sug ges -
tions for how to increase coherence personally and or ga ni za -
tion al ly, it boils down to this: the human need to con nect with
others in a meaningful way is more urgent than ever. The emer-
gence of the Web and a diz zy ing array of com mu ni ca tion tools
and devices has only made ob vi ous what our hearts knew we
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 119
[ 120 ] From Chaos to Coherence
wanted all along. The Cluetrain writers en vi sion: Cluetrain Cluetrain
New types of connections. The heart fowing to oth er hearts. A new
rhythm. A new causality. A new un der stand ing of pow er. Con ver -
sa tion that understands that it isnt a dis trac tion from work, its the
real work of business.
8
07 CH 7 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 120
c h a p t e r
8
Technology, Inner
Technology, and the
Measure of Human Capital
AS WITH VIRTUALLY EVERY FACET OF SOCIETY TODAY,
technology is in massive transition, facing signifcant choices for
its future direction. The picture is chaotic to be sure. With com-
puting power now exceeding even Moores Law of doubling of
microprocessor speed every 18 months and devices becoming
smaller, more compact, and more versatile, the future looks
like a gadget freaks paradise. Much of this new technology will
add immeasurably to our ability to learn and understand across
borders and across time zones. Our glee in successfully using a
GPS (global positioning system) navigation system (provided at
no extra charge by Hertz) and the ease it afforded us going from
appointment to appointment all over the Chicago metropolitan
area, was yet another example of how fun and energy-saving
technology can be. So what's the downside? Concerns about
cyber-crime, children glued to computer screens, breakdown
of traditional communities, the digital divide between rich and
poorconnected and unconnectedare just some potential
effects.
1
The debate rages. None other than Bill Joy, a founder of
Sun Microsystems, and one of the industrys most thoughtful
[ 121 ]
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 01/06/04, 3:59 PM 121
[ 122 ] From Chaos to Coherence
pi o neers, has publicly questioned the un bri dled technology-
for-technologys-sake mentality. The IPO frenzy surrounding
all the Internet start-ups fur ther amplifed an often irrational,
keep-up-with-the-Joneses mindset that embraces every tech-
nological in no va tion without con sid er ing the social or human
con se quenc es. Bill Joy:
For Aristotle, an argument based on a poem was as valid as one
based on science. Weve lost that. I dont sense in this com mu ni ty
that an eth i cal, spir i tu al-based ar gu ment carries nearly as much
weight as a capitalist im per a tive or the notion that progress is the ul-
ti mate. That what ev er hap pens happens. Its scientifc fa tal ism and it
could be fatal for us.
2
Or this from Tom Valovic, author of Digital Mythologies:
There is a tremendous, market-driven haste to get into in vis i ble
tech nol o gies that are unstable and dan ger ous to life. It re quires this
re li gious leap of faith that science knows best.
3
The point is not that technology is evil. Its neutral. The
lack of emotional managementat this critical stage of human
evo lu tionis the wild card.
Increasingly, communication is becoming electronic. The
good news is that there are more ways to connect than ever; the
bad news is that there seems to be no escape. As bandwidth (the
range of available frequencies) expands to satisfy our craving
for information, so does the potential for in for ma tion overload.
The more information to which we gain access, the more our in-
ter nal circuitry overloads, making ef fec tive pro cess ing diffcult
at best.
A Reuters study
4
A Reuters study A Reuters study suggests we are witnessing the rise of a
new generation of dataholics. Based on a survey of 1,000 peo-
ple in the United States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany,
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 122
Technology, Inner Technology, and the Measure of Human Capital [ 123 ]
Singapore, and Hong Kong, the survey cited these responses:
More than 50% feel unable to handle all the information
ac cu mu lat ed in their jobs.
61% believe information overload is present in their work-
place, with 80% predicting the situation will worsen.
47% take material home or work longer hours to keep up
with the amount of information accumulated.
55% are concerned children will become information
junk ies, with 36% ex treme ly worried their children were
overexposed to in for ma tion.
Nearly half of all parents said their children prefer PCs to
peers.
The picture has not brightened since 9/11. Two re search ers
have determined that as much as 85% of the pop u la tion feels
uncomfortable with technology.
5
The 15% who are com fort able
still fall prey to frustration, intimidation, or dis tress. Even the
techno-literati feel the pressure. The number of messages and
oth er demands on our at ten tionwhether phone calls, e-mail,
TV ads, Internet junk mail (af fec tion ate ly called spam), or oth- spam spam
er kinds of messagesnumber in the tens of thou sands daily.
As we were work ing on this book, a call came in from a cli ent, a
senior executive of a global technology cor po ra tion, who was la-
ment ing the incredible drain on his en er gy required to deal with
the 200250 daily e-mail mes sag es he receives. Most get deleted
without being read. And yet the send ers thought they had com-
municated.
E-mail can rapidly aggravate organizational incoherence.
React neg a tive ly, even mistakenly, to a new policy or any sit u a-
tion, and you can in stant ly broadcast your displeasure to doz-
ens of people. Here is a simple sto ry. In a large fnancial ser vic es
frm, an irate employee gave hostile feed back via e-mail to a co-
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 123
[ 124 ] From Chaos to Coherence
worker and sent copies to 15 other people, including the boss of
the coworkers boss. The team director then had to sort out the
is sue, while re sponding to two higher levels of man age ment and
calming down the co worker who had been pub lic ly and unfairly
humiliated, elec tron i cal ly. Similarly, cus tom er com plaints elec-
tronically can snake their way very high into an or ga ni za tion,
involving many people emotionally in the drama. In both ex-
amples, e-mail is not the villain; it is neu tral. But e-mail has be-
come a convenient vehicle in the trans mis sion of incoherence
and emotional mis management.
The information overload phenomenon increasingly is
glo bal. Another survey done by Reuters,
6
conducted with man-
age ment per son nel in the Unit ed Kingdom, United States,
Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore, revealed a tre men dous
amount of men tal an guish and physical illness re sult ing from
in for ma tion fatigue.
One in four of the 1,300 managers surveyed admitted to
suf fer ing ill health as a result of the volume of information
they must han dle.
48% agreed that the Internet will play a primary role in
fur ther ag gra vat ing the problem over the next few years.
Two thirds of managers re port ed that tension with work
col leagues and loss of job satisfaction arise because of
stress as so ci at ed with in for ma tion overload.
43% of senior managers suffered from ill health as a direct
con se quence of stress associated with information over-
load.
62% testifed that their personal relationships suffered as a
result of information overload.
44% believed the cost of collecting information exceeds its
value to business.
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 124
Technology, Inner Technology, and the Measure of Human Capital [ 125 ]
How much of this craze for information arises out of in se -
cu ri ty and fearfear we will be left behind, fear someone else
will do the deal or get to the mar ket faster, insecurity that if we
are not constantly con nect ed our value and worth will be
questioned and ultimately cast aside?
It is fascinating to step back and realize how quickly in for -
ma tion tech nol o gy be came
cen tral to our lives. Can you
re mem ber when you did not
own a VCR, nobody sent fax es,
no body used e-mail, per son al
com put ers were a nov el ty (even
in busi ness), pag ers did not ex-
ist, and phones in cars were for
pres i dents and prime min is ters?
This pastoral scene is 1980! Fast
for ward to the present and we,
in the de vel oped coun tries,
clear ly live in an entirely dif-
fer ent world. To day, many of
usmore all the timework
and live in tech nol o gy-in ten sive
en vi ron ments. Our homes in-
creas ing ly refect the tech nol o gy
fren zy in or ga ni za tions. And, by
all ac counts, the in ten si ty and
speed of change will only in-
crease. There is no end in sight
for this trend to slow down or
shift di rec tion.
7
Only when the
neg a tive con se quenc es cost us
dearly are we like ly to chal lenge
the basic as sump tion that an
examine how to
reduce information
over load
T
echnology facilitates
convenience and effciency
and also creates chal leng es.
Healthy or ga ni za tions of the fu-
ture will balance the ac qui si tion
of information with in di vid u al
well-being and pro duc tiv i ty.
Un bri dled as sim i la tion of in for -
ma tion grinds individual pro duc -
tiv i ty un der a moun tain of need-
less data. Make sure in for ma tion
sys tems and pro cess es make it
eas i er for peo ple to do their jobs,
not feel more over whelmed. Use
this same principle to examine
how to make it easier for cus-
tom ers to do busi ness with you.
Con nec tiv i ty is great when theres
meaning in the con nec tion.
examine how to
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 125
[ 126 ] From Chaos to Coherence
ever-in creas ing vol ume of raw in for ma tion is in her ent ly good.
(One can die of too much of any thing, in clud ing water.) any thing any thing
In a very short time15 years or socomputers and in for -
ma tion tech nol o gy rap id ly became the primary physical as set
of corporations and cen tral to their operations. Today, close
to half of all capital ex pen di tures made by companies are on
com put ers, networks, and software, the largest single cat e go ry
of ex pen di ture.
8
Almost every employee of public and private
sec tor organizations must be able to operate at least one but
usu al ly several kinds of in for ma tion tech nol o gy device: com-
put ers, laptops, modems, fax ma chines, e-mail, pagers, cel lu lar
phones, and other similar equip ment.
A Coherent Response to Information
Tech nol o gy
How do we cope with all this? Pull the plug on technology and
go back to simpler living? Unplugging is not prac ti cal nor pos-
si ble for organizations, though we clearly have a choice at home.
Fur ther more, our perceptions of tech nol o gy and the kinds of perceptions perceptions
demands and changes on our lives that come with it are key to
whether tech nol o gys value exceeds its price.
Technology does not place us into an idyllic garden of
par a dise but rath er into an unsettling garden of paradox, as-
serts David Glen Mick of the Uni ver si ty of Wisconsin in Mad-
i son.
9
The essence of a paradox is that it cannot be re solved.
It creates an emotional confict within a person that can be a
source of considerable stress, and the need to cope with that
stress affects how the person behaves as a consumer. Mick
and fellow researcher Susan Fournier of the Harvard Busi ness
School have identifed seven paradoxes that char ac ter ize the
re la tion ship between consumers and tech nol o gy:
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 126
Technology, Inner Technology, and the Measure of Human Capital [ 127 ] [ 127 [ 127
The way in which technology insures greater control or ex- control control
ac er bates cha os.
Whether technology promises freedom or creates new freedom freedom en-
slave ment. slave ment slave ment
The need for the latest new technology versus the fear of
be com ing obsolete.
The way technology boosts our intelligence while at times
hu mil i at ing us into a feeling of stupidity. stupidity stupidity
The promise of increased effciency versus the reality of ex-
tra new chores creating ineffciency. ineffciency ineffciency
The premise technology will fulfll needs, while in fact cre- fulfll needs fulfll needs
at ing new needs.
The value of technology in increasing assimilation and
con nec tion between people, versus its tendency to create
iso la tion by di min ish ing face-to-face contact. di min ish ing di min ish ing
Technology serves us when it enhances un der stand ing. In-
for ma tion is useless without an agile mind and a balanced heart.
The Cluetrain boys again:
We dont need more information. We dont need bet ter in for ma tion.
We dont need automatically fltered and summarized information.
We need un der stand ing. We desperately want to un der stand whats
going on in our business, in our markets. And un der stand ing is not
more or higher information.
10
The information age requires a new type of intelligence
for peo ple to sort through, flter, and effectively process all the
data and choices now avail able. Whether you are a consumer of
tech nol o gy or a product de vel op er, learning to develop heart
in tel li gence gives you increased insight to assess the essential
value of informationor a new productfrom a wider per-
spec tive. Without heart intelligencewhen operating solely
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 127
[ 128 ] From Chaos to Coherence
from an over taxed mindpeople quickly are over whelmed and
respond to only the loudest and most persistent in for ma tion or
default to old, familiar pro cess es. An intelligent as sess ment of
new information is diffcult at best. In the extreme, you may de-
fen sive ly shut down and not really assimilate much in for ma tion
at all. As the knowledge base is built and you achieve com pe -
tence in reducing your internal noise, you can use intuition to
search the internal knowledge base at lightning speed, bypass-
ing a more linear search process. The internal knowl edge base,
coupled with intuition, allows one to leap be yond known pos-
sibilities to fnd unique new solutions when necessary. This rep-
resents tremendous le ver age for anyone in busi ness today. When resents tremendous le ver age for anyone in busi ness today resents tremendous le ver age for anyone in busi ness today
trying to sort information at high speed, focus on your heart, get
neutral, and ask yourself for the most important understanding
you can gain.
So if technology has radically increased the bandwidth of
pos si ble in for ma tion transfermore ways in which to connect,
more conduits for knowl edge fow, and more opportunities to
be over whelmedwhat if tech nol o gy was actively being used to
enhance the quality of that information? Watts Wacker and Jim
Taylor, authors of The 500-Year Delta, make this observation:
It was Arno Penzias, the 1978 Nobel laureate in physics, who frst
the o rized that computing had met communicating to form con-
nec tiv i ty and that, in ef fect, everything eventually will be con nect ed.
Computing, in short, was nev er about data crunching. Data crunch-
ing was the means; connectivity was the end, which is why the data-
pigs and cyber-pioneers will never in her it the Earth. Nor was the
communications revolution about the ma chines and ser vic es that
spawned it. Fax machines, modems, interactive TV, and Internet
providers were all the means; connectivity was the end. Com put ing
and communicating did more than intersect; they fused. And when
they fused, connectivity was born. But connectivity fnally is not the
end, either. Connectivity is a state of existence, nothing more. The
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 128
Technology, Inner Technology, and the Measure of Human Capital [ 129 ]
true end is what hap pens when things are in connection, what hap-
pens when con nec tiv i ty itself fuses with information.
11
To which we add: Connectivity is great if the signals are
clear and the content has enduring value. But, how much noise
is present in the con nec tion, the noise of incoherence on the
part of the sender or receiver? What is the enduring value of the
messages being sent? How do we improve the inner quality of
the people operating the tech nol o gy? people people
Torrey Byles is a business economist and writer on elec-
tron ic and dig i tal commerce. Byles points out that com put ers,
like any other tool, above all are in tend ed to en hance human
productivity. For ex am ple, call-center and cus tom er sup port
departments use com put ers to quickly bring up the account
fle of a customer who calls in. Call-center rep re sen ta tives are
far more pro duc tive in deal ing with the spe cifc is sues, requests,
and other pertinent in for ma tion con cern ing the cus tom er
than if they had no ready ac cess to the cus tom er fles, which
the computer provides. The result, we all hope, is a customer
who re mains loyal to the company and sat is fed with his or her
interaction with it. But what about the in ter nal attitude of the
rep re sen ta tive? Does the customer feel un der stood or respected
during the in ter ac tion or just ef f cient ly han dled so another call
can be taken? Tech no log i cal ef f cien cy can en hance, but never
replace, the warmth of hu man respect and sin cere listening.
Another example is the re search er in a governmental health
agen cy. She uses com put ers for many purposes in clud ing search-
ing databases of re search papers or oth er in for ma tion, build ing
sim u la tions and models of nat u ral pro cess es, and con duct ing
sta tis ti cal analyses of lab o ra to ry ex per i ments. In both of these
ex am ples, com put ers make a big dif fer ence in al low ing work ers
to achieve the de sired out comes. Without com put ers in these
examples, either dras ti cal ly more work ers would be re quired to
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 129
[ 130 ] From Chaos to Coherence
achieve the same re sults or else
the same re sults just could not
be ac com plished in the same
pe ri od of time and for the
same cost to the or ga ni za tion.
Un for tu nate ly, com put er sys-
tems can be poor ly de signed
and im ple ment ed into work-
places, so that they coun ter act
pro duc tive hu man work. In
these cases, com put ers only
frus trate, over whelm, or oth-
er wise block the ef f cient fow
of work.
Byles goes on to suggest
that the heartand per son al
emo tion al bal anceplays a
critical role in get ting the most
pro duc tiv i ty out of in for ma tion sys tems.
In the design and deployment of computers, balanced emotions on
the part of the designers will result in effective computer sys tems for
the end-users. In the day-to-day use of computers by end-users at
work, balanced emo tions will allow workers to use the systems in the
manner in which they are in tended, and to avoid being frustrated
and overwhelmed by them. In oth er words, by combining emo-
tion al ly balanced people with the pow ers of in for ma tion tech nol o gy,
companies can achieve break throughs in per for mance.
12
The Heart and Human Capital
To what extent computers have truly added to human pro duc -
tiv i ty is a sig nif cant debate among economists and busi ness
leaders cur rent ly. At a cli ent lunch where the food tide of e-mail
dont use
technology as a
sub sti tute for human
warmth
I
ts easy to fre off an e-mail,
full of comments you would have
nev er said in person. Its also handy
to leave voicemail mes sag es at odd
hours, knowing you can avoid direct
contact and real con ver sa tion. Re-
mem ber, you like peo ple to com mu -
ni cate with you with some warmth,
care, and di rect ness, rather than
us ing half sen tenc es, sym bols and
ab bre vi a tions. Re mem ber the heart.
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
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Technology, Inner Technology, and the Measure of Human Capital [ 131 ]
overload was being lamented, one high-tech company executive
sincerely asked wheth er we felt technology had enough positive
benefts to outweigh its obvious stress-pro duc ing down side. In
an age where the mass con scious ness seems to assume more
technology is inherently better, many say that no well-grounded
mea sure ments unequivocally show that computers have en-
hanced workers output. Others say that, be cause computers
wholly change the nature of output (in terms of quality of prod-
uct, ability to customize product to in di vid u al cus tom er pref-
erences, speed of production, worker skill re quire ments, and
oth er factors), the impact of computers is almost impossible to
measure in an apples-to-apples fash ion. Nevertheless, most
economists and others in the f nan cial community agree that
com put ers and information tech nol o gy are features of a new
un der stand ing of human eco nom ic growth: in tel lec tu al capital
and the knowledge econ o my.
In this new understanding, the content of peoples intellect
(their imag i na tion, knowledge, creative ideas, skill sets, as sess -
ments, de signs, abil i ty to make requests and promises, fu ture
expectations, etc.) is the source of all wealth. Material prod ucts
are only by-prod ucts of the intellect. Ma te ri al, tangible things
come into existence only af ter people have con ceived of them,
worked to attain them, and used specifc prac ti cal ways of at-
taining them. The in tan gi ble and in tel lec tu al pre cedesand
is inherently more valuable thanthe tan gi ble and ma te ri al.
(Clear ly our view is that in tel lect is only one as pect of human
and or ga ni za tion al in tel li gence. But how re fresh ing that some-
thing as intangible as in tel lect ac tu al ly is being mea sured in
organizations.)
Leif Edvinsson, the worlds frst vice president of in tel -
lec tu al cap i tal at Swe dens Skandia, and Micha el S. Malone, a
noted business writer, sum up this point well in their book, In-
tel lec tu al Capital: tel lec tu al Capital tel lec tu al Capital
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 131
[ 132 ] From Chaos to Coherence
All individual capabilities, the knowledge, skill, and experience of the
com panies employees and managers, is included under the term
hu man cap i tal. But it must be more than simply the sum of these
mea sures; rather, it also must capture the dynamics of an intelligent
organization in a chang ing com pet i tive environment. For ex am ple:
Are employees and man ag ers constantly upgrading their skills and
adding new ones? Are these new skills and com pe ten cies recognized
by the com pa ny and incorporated into its operations? And are these
new skills, as well as the experiences of com pa ny veterans, being
shared through out the or ga ni za tion? Or, al ter na tive ly, is the com-
pa ny still draw ing on a body of aging and in creas ing ly ob so lete skills,
ig nor ing (even pun ish ing) new com pe ten cies gained by em ploy ees,
and locking up knowl edge as a way of cornering pow er and infu-
ence with the or ga ni za tion?
13
Given that we are be gin ning to see how importantand
mea sur ably valuablethe intellect is, what does this tell us
about the emotional and in tu i tive sides of being human? What
would happen if we could coherently orchestrate a balance of all
human factors, change able and dynamic though they are? The
fruits of the intellects pow ers are con di tioned by the emo tion al
state of the person. An angry or depressed sci en tist is a sci en tist
whose in tel lec tu al cap i tal is low. A joy ous, en thu si as tic plumb er
is a plumb er who brings tre men dous in tel lec tu al cap i tal (cre-
ativ i ty, knowledge, skills, etc.) to mak ing a won der ful hu man
hab i tat. At the same time that some busi ness es have dis cov ered
in tel lec tu al capital, we are dis cov er ing hu man cap i tal. Good
human capitalin oth er words, in tel lec tu al and emo tion al bal-
anceis a pre req ui site for a per son to gain access to his or her
in tel lec tu al cap i tal.
Byles makes a further point worth pondering. Hu mans have
in vent ed many in cred i ble tools over the mil len nia. (An thro pol o-
gists say that tool mak ing is a fun da men tal human trait.) The
spe cies has now advanced to the point where we rec og nize that
our tools are not only phys i cal but non phys i cal as well. We are
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 132
Technology, Inner Technology, and the Measure of Human Capital [ 133 ]
now working to sys tem at i cal ly cre ate and ex ploit non phys i cal
toolsin soft ware pro grams, ed u ca tion and train ing, and knowl-
edge that is recorded in var i ous elec tron ic media.
The in for ma tion age with its in for ma tion tools (name ly,
com put ers) is the dawn ing of an age where a common and
wide spread prac tice in hu man so ci ety is to use intangible tools
at work. Com put ers are some what of a bridge tool: part phys i cal
and part non phys i cal. They con nect the phys i cal world with the
in tel lec tu al world, the world of ideas and intellect.
14
Emo tion al
man age ment prac tic es are an oth er set of in tan gi ble tools. Where
in for ma tion tech nol o gy has been viewed as the tool of the in-
tel lect, the intellect is a far more pow er ful tool when fu eled by
man aged emo tions. Heart in tel li gence is the up grade for the hu-
man op er at ing sys tem.
The Institute of
HeartMath has created an in-
stru ment that mea sures key
aspects of hu man capital and
pinpoints where stress is in-
hibiting its full leverage. The
Personal and Or ga ni za tion al
Quality As sess ment (POQA)
mea sures more than a
dozen sep a rate constructs,
tracking self-management
com pe ten cies, personal qual-
ity, organizational quality and
or ga ni za tion al climate. The
or ga ni za tion al con structs
mea sured by the POQA in-
clude social sup port, goal
clar i ty, men tal clar i ty, job sat-
coaxing the
knowledge out
I
s our harried quest for more
information driving real
knowl edge and wisdom un der -
ground? How much knowl edge
lies buried in the hearts, minds,
and hard drives of our best and
brightest, but were all feeling too
overloaded to share it? How can
we encourage, honor, and reward
the open shar ing of what weve
learned in ways that dont add to
our bur den, but could lighten the
load?
coaxing the
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[ 134 ] From Chaos to Coherence
is fac tion, pro duc tiv i ty, and com mu ni ca tion ef fec tive ness. The
self-management com pe ten cies include global neg a tive affect
(mood), sad ness, de pres sion, an ger, dis tress, fa tigue, pos i tive
af fect (mood), peace ful ness, and vi tal i ty. The stress symptoms
mea sured are sleep less ness, anx i ety, body aches, indigestion,
and rapid heart beats. Attitudes to ward the job, toward man-
agement, and intention to leave the job are just a few of the
organizational is sues explored.
The POQA is used to com pare the health and hu man cap-
i tal of an or ga ni za tion against a da ta base of world-class or ga ni z-
a tions, and to measure chang es resulting from the ap pli ca tion of
the IQM tech nol o gy. (The case stud ies data cited in the Appen-
dix were gen er at ed through the POQA, with the ex cep tion of the
biomedical data, which was generated through stan dard medi-
cal monitoring.) As this information is fed back to participants
and man age ment, clear steps can be taken to re duce the noise,
resulting in higher value hu man capital and business solutions.
Coherent Information Shar ing
Clearly, the coherent sharing of information is a key to suc-
cess in the fu tureand a pri ma ry way to reduce per son al and
or ga ni za tion al strain. As tech nol o gy con tin ues to ex pand the
band width of com mu ni ca tion, people still must over see the
qual i ty. Inner qual i ty man age ment em pha siz es help ing in di -
vid u als un der stand how to boost their own in ner qual i tyto
im prove the internal com mu ni ca tion with in them selvesthen
take that to their team (or family), their de part ment (or so cial
cir cle), their or ga ni za tion (or community).
We found that this shar ing of information is easy to ser-
mon ize about but harder to ac tu al ize when business op er ates
at ever-in creas ing speeds. For people to stop long enough to
re mem ber the im por tance of shar ing (when they have a mil-
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 134
Technology, Inner Technology, and the Measure of Human Capital [ 135 ]
lion other things to do), they
need spe cifc tools for the
process of step ping back. The
ability to pull back and rec-
og nize frus tra tion, ir ri ta tion,
anger, or anx i ety is the frst
im por tant step to ward fnd-
ing an ef fec tive en er gy-sav ing
so lu tion, to move from chaos
to coherence.
Living Information
Getting off the treadmill for
one minute to Freeze-Frame
can in stant ly wid en the band-
width of avail able in tel li gence:
more in for ma tion with which
to make de ci sions and more
care to add to one self and the
situation one is in. In terms of
the com mu ni ca tion process
it self, this creates what we call val ue-add ed information, with
the potential for much great er impact and broader ap pli ca tion.
When true care is at the core of the de sire to share, the quality
of all sub se quent activities shifts into another do main of power
and effectiveness.
Another way to look at this: it is one thing to rec og nize the
im por tance of a broadcast, another to spend the time ensuring
that the receiver is properly tuned and distortion free. Most or-
ga ni za tions are fairly good at the former but com plete ly ig nore
the latter. Real shar ing of information re quires un der stand ing
the subtleties and nu anc es of in for ma tion trans fer be tween
in an age of
internet time, move
at the speed of balance
T
he internet economy has
caused a tremendous ac-
cel er a tion in business ac tiv i ty.
Without balance, this high-speed
connectivity can lead to rushed
decisions, strained sys tems, and
over whelmed em ploy ees. Seek
balance in your stra te gic discus-
sions. Stay vis i ble and attentive
to rap id ly changing markets and
world con di tions, but act with
ma tu ri ty and care for peo ple and
balance any tendency towards
emotional reactivity or strained
im pul sive ness.
in an age of
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08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 135
[ 136 ] From Chaos to Coherence
people. Then it becomes the trans fer of living information.
As soon as humans are involved, we need to remember
that we are deal ing with nonlinear systems who feel as well as feel feel
think. The hu man being, physiologically and psychologically, is
a living example of chaos theory in ac tion. Skill in human un der -
stand ing provides the resonant feld to allow seam less, stat ic-
free information transfer. Put simply, when you re mem ber to be
compassionate, authentic, and caring in your com mu ni ca tion,
it is much easier for the listener to hear the mes sage. This is a
skill that requires practice to de vel op and the positive, public
reinforcement of its merits. For example, stop ping to deeply con-
sider the range of responses to a piece of e-mail you are about to sider the range of responses sider the range of responses
broad cast can save considerable stress and increase productiv-
ity. Con sid er ing the most appropriate means of communica-
tioneven mul ti ple modesensures a high er level of receptiv-
ity to and sustainability of the mes sage. But I sent you e-mail
about this! is no excuse for in suf f cient com mu ni ca tion.
A Creative Vision
Information technology today is very primitive compared to what
it will be in the future. In 20 years, we will look back at to days
com put ers, wireless com mu ni ca tion devices, the Internet, and
so forth and think that these are very sim ple tools, some perhaps
even mis guid ed. Byles believes in for ma tion tech nol o gies will be
designed around principles of emotional man age ment and other
core human char ac ter is tics.
15
Ar gu ably there is no oth er al ter -
na tive. What do we do in the mean time?
Practical examples of stress-reducing ways of han dling
tech nol o gy overload in clude the following. Take a moment to
Freeze-Frame be fore logging on to be fore be fore e-mail. Then as you scan the in-
box, ask your self, what is the high est pri or i ty in for ma tion here and
what is the most ef f cient way to re spond? Stay neu tral to keep
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 136
Technology, Inner Technology, and the Measure of Human Capital [ 137 ] [ 137 [ 137
your re ac tions in check as you pore through oth er wise non essential
in for ma tion. Re main ing emo tion al ly neu tral means stress will not
subtly ac cu mu late on the back of judg men tal thoughts, con cerns,
or frus tra tions. Be stra te gic as to when and how you re spond. Re-
mem ber that if you are op er at ing in a re ac tive mode, you will not
re spond with full in tel li gence or care.
At HeartMath LLC, we im ple ment ed a simple meth od that
has saved con sid er able time in e-mail read ing and set ting pri or i-
ties. Since some e-mail mes sag es need be only a simple phrase,
such as Be there at 3 for the meet ing or Report need ed by 4:
30, we es tab lished a pro to col that any mes sage that could be
sum ma rized in a few words would start with a * sym bol. This
* symbol in the subject line
lets the read er know the en-
tire mes sage is con tained in
the sub ject line, there fore no
need to open the e-mail since
there is nothing else there to
read. For example, our admin-
istrator sends us a re mind er
phrased like this: *Itin er ary in
your in box!
We simply read this sub-
ject line in the list of e-mails,
then delete. You would be
surprised how much time
this simple pro cess can save,
especially when you consider
the number of employees,
the number of hours spent on
e-mail, the number of days at
work. While this does not solve
be connected,
not en slaved
T
he lure of technology and
the pressure to con stant ly
ex pand ones knowledge base
cre ates a dilemma. Do you stay
con tin u ous ly connected in an
in creas ing ly des per ate attempt
to stay informed, or learn to
use tech nol o gy as a tool, not a
drug? Tech nol o gy can ag gra vate
per son al in co her ence. Use your
intuition to know when to un plug.
Look for bal ance in how to use it.
Let its power to create sys tems ef-
f cien cies be the guide line. Learn
how to surf in tu itive ly.
be connected,
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08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 137
[ 138 ] From Chaos to Coherence
the whole prob lem of over use of e-mail in many or ga ni za tions,
it does encourage an attitude of effcient, concise com mu ni c-
a tion that is sensitive to the needs and workload of the re ceiv er.
We heard of at least one multibillion-dollar organization
giv ing per mis sion to overworked employees not to respond
to e-mail for 2448 hours, to encourage greater balance in the
face of e-overload. The policy achieved mixed results since the
culture continues to covertly reward overwork and employees
work hab its are slow to change. The attitudinal level is where
the real work must occur.
Organizations also need to dis cuss how communication is dis cuss dis cuss
work ing, in what ways people are feel ing over whelmed, where
they feel underinformed, so the mind and heart together can
de sign effective ways to com mu ni cate that are effcient for all
con cerned. Intuitive in tel li gence increases as you continuously
step back for a moment and ponder a more effective re sponse.
One of the most pre cious commodities for all of us is time, and
we could all do a lot better job of re specting each others and
our own.
Voice mail is yet another ubiquitous form of com mu -
ni ca tion that has rad i cal ly changed the nature of how we com-
mu ni cate. (When was the last time you called a large organiza-
tion and heard a busy signal? We heard one re cent ly and, for a
moment, didnt know what to do.) Re spond ing to the number of
voice mail messages and an occasionally strained or angry tone
is a signifcant source of an guish and dread, sapping coherence
in virtually all or ga ni za tions. What if your computer system
could monitor the in co her ence generated dur ing and after
listening to voice mail and could track the impaired decision
making, the health con se quenc es, and the loss of pro duc tiv i ty?
You probably would be shocked at the data. Taking a mo ment
to Freeze-Frame and fnd neutral before and during listening
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 138
Technology, Inner Technology, and the Measure of Human Capital [ 139 ]
and responding to voice mail can keep your sys tem more in bal-
ance, as well as help you hear beneath an an gry or im pa tient
tone to the underlying essence of the mes sage. Intuitive listen-
ing can ensure you are hearing the es sence of the message and
responding from that depth. The al ter na tive is ever-increasing
levels of incoherence, per son al ly and professionally.
Technology can be a vehicle for positive experience be-
yond in tel lec tu al stimulation in many ways. Screen savers could
remind you to value important elements of your life. Digitized
images on your com put er monitor could help you recall a feel-
ing of peace and rejuvenation. While some or ga ni za tions frown
on personalized use of computers, ever-wors en ing productivity
and deepening mal aise eventually will reveal that computers
and information sys tems must become vehicles for the posi-
tive reinforcement of be hav iors that boost the organizational
climate.
One of the most popular follow-up tools we ever devised
is a sim ple Internet group subscribed to by past IQM program
at tend ees. Each week thousands of people around the world
re ceive a two to three para graph e-mail message about the ap-
pli ca tion of one of the tools they have learned. We continuously
hear that these sim ple e-mail messages quick ly are read and ab-
sorbed, so sure are the read ers that this will be a to tal ly pos i tive,
useful, and car ing message. Noth ing else to do, no response
re quired, no re ports to fll out. Just a brief interlude to remind
them what is im por tant, to re gain co her ence, to move past me-
chan i cal hab its and get the mind and heart in sync. We have
helped client or ga ni za tions set up similar dis cus sion groups to
keep or ga ni za tion al co her ence themes alive amidst the din of
work.
What if computers and oth er information devices in the
fu ture were able to mon i tor your physical or emo tion al state and
08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:55 PM 139
[ 140 ] From Chaos to Coherence
re mind you how to shift per-
cep tion? What if they could
dis play on the screen your
out-of-sync heart rhythms,
then at the touch of a but ton,
you could re bal ance them
and re fresh your en tire sys tem
for the next few hours? (Just
such a tool was de vel oped by
our re search team since the
frst edi tion of this book was
pub lished. Called the Freeze-
Framer
, this award-winning
computer learning system gives
users immediate feedback on
the rhythmic patterns of their
hearts, which respond dynami-
cally to changes in stress and
emotion.) What if hard ware and soft ware en gi neers in the future
continuously ex plored how to make these tools ser vants of our
growth as peo ple, not just ve hi cles for more in for ma tion?
In the visionary words of Singapores prime minister, Goh
Chok Tong, We should focus on building capabilities, re sil -
ience, and heartware for the fu ture.
16
The caring and ef f cient
integration of tools for in ter nal self- management and coherent
com mu ni ca tion un der pin the next dy nam ic: or ga ni za tion al cli-
mate.
plug the leaks
A
nything unresolved
events or concerns you
con tin ue to ex pend un nec es sary
en er gy ondrains energy not only
per son al ly but or ga ni za tion al ly.
Stop ping any drain saves energy
and also helps restore hormonal
and car dio vas cu lar balance. Use
the Freeze-Frame tech nique to
iden ti fy areas youre leaking en er gy.
You can learn to use this high per-
for mance technique to plug leaks
before they be come foods.
plug the leaks
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08 CH 8 FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:56 PM 140
DYNAMIC 3
BOOSTING THE ORGANIZATIONAL
CLIMATE
1. An emotional virus is attacking many organizations today. It
is the result of emotional mismanagement and shortsighted
management practices. And a corollary of this is organi-
zational learning thrives when the organizational immune
system is strong and vibrant.
2. A healthy organizational climate is now proven to boost
productivity. These elements include supportive manage-
ment, contribution, self-expression, recognition, clarity, and
challenge.
3. Shared core values such as adaptability, fexibility, care,
and appreciation underlie sustainable organizational cli-
mates.
4. Understanding the distinction between knowledge and wis-
dom is essential to organizational leadership. Building wise
companies through developing wise people is the next or-
ganizational frontier.
[ 141 ]
09 CH 9 FCTC.ID 01/05/04, 4:18 PM 141
09 CH 9 FCTC.ID 01/05/04, 4:18 PM 142
c h a p t e r
9
Theres a Virus Loose
and Its Got Bob
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. THERES A VIRUS SPREADING IN
your organization, but it didnt come through the e-mail system.
It spreads person to person, department to department. Across
cubicles. Across time zones. Across cultures. Thank goodness
there is an antidote.
From a systems perspective, an organization is an or-
ganisma living, breathing, mutually dependent entity. It
requires a wide variety of nutrients and resources to be healthy;
it can get sick in response to external stressors or internal im-
balance and, unless it learns to
heal itself, eventually becomes
sick and dies.
Typically today when an
organization recognizes some-
things not right, the solutions
are to focus on cost cutting,
process reengineering, product
improvements, or improving
customer service. While these
well-intentioned initiatives
are usually necessary, they are
not suffcient. They focus on
[ 143 ]
whats got bob
A
n emotional virus is
attacking many organiz-
ations today. It is the net effect
of emotional mismanagement
and shortsighted management
practices. And its corollary is
this: organizational learning
thrives when the organizational
immune system is strong and
vibrant.
09 CH 9 FCTC.ID 01/05/04, 4:18 PM 143
[ 144 ] From Chaos to Coherence Theres a Virus Loose and Its Got Bob [ 145 ]
the symptoms, not the cause. In many organizations, this clas-
sic Band-Aid approach actually creates more frustration, anger,
and anxiety, while the organization, or organism, becomes even
sicker. Once people are drained emotionally, the creative energy
needed to develop new innovations is sapped. Additional en-
ergy is then expended in ineffcient ways that put added strain
on the people, and the downward spiral accelerates. Acrimony,
mistrust, antagonism, and blame are just a few of the emo-
tional reactions that take up residence in the workplace. Finger
pointing becomes the preferred exercise program, and left un-
checked, the very creative source for the organization is drained.
A CSC (Computer Sciences Corporation) Index State of
Reengineering Report revealed these statistics undermining
many organizational climates:
50% of the companies studied reported that the most dif-
fcult part of reengineering is dealing with fear and anxiety
in their organizations.
73% of the companies said that they were using reengi-
neering to eliminate, on average, 21% of the jobs.
Of 99 completed reengineering initiatives, 67% were
judged as producing mediocre, marginal, or failed results.
Consider this analogy. Bob, an executive with your frm,
goes for his annual physical. Nothing seems to be wrong health-
wise, just a routine checkup. Of course, he had been feeling a
little tired lately, but who wouldnt be with all the international
travel, round the clock pressure, and never enough help.
The doctor reviews the lab reports, checks the vital signs, then
rechecks. His face turns serious. Bob expects the worst. Your
blood pressure is at the edge of stage two hypertension, choles-
terol is nearly off the chart, and you have the beginning stages of
arrhythmia. Im putting you on a program of increased exercise,
09 CH 9 FCTC.ID 01/05/04, 4:18 PM 144
[ 144 ] From Chaos to Coherence Theres a Virus Loose and Its Got Bob [ 145 ]
no-fat diet, and no more
stress! To Bob, life has just
been turned upside down. A
radical rethinking of his entire
lifestyle has been necessitated
by the doctors shocking dis-
covery. No second opinion is
going to lower that blood pres-
sure or cholesterol. And how is
he going to have no stress?!?
Bobs problems are not just
physical. Hes been struggling
for the past 12 months with a
poorly conceived merger. The
two cultures have clearly not
meshed, and the antagonism
between the factions have
gotten extreme. Now hes the
target of employee hostility
and it doesnt feel fair!
Compare this to the busi-
ness that is humming along
successfully, taking its market
by storm, feeling indomitable.
Its new technology is the buzz
of Wall Street and a cover story
in Fortune is in the works. A
few systems seem to be strain-
ing every so often, but this is
considered just growing pains.
However, a series of late prod-
uct releases and the departure
eliminate the
emotional virus
T
he collective lack of
emotional self-manage-
ment within an organization can
prevent increases in productivity
and inhibit sustained long-term
growth. An organization with an
unhealthy climate permeated
by judgmentalism, anger, blame,
constant complaining, overcare,
and an us versus them attitude,
impairs the organizations abil-
ity to innovate and to remain
resilient. In a highly competitive,
rapidly changing business envi-
ronment, failure to address these
cultural issues will ultimately
lead to corporate failure. Make
these cultural issues a priority.
Obtain the resources needed to
identify the emotional virus in
your organization. Implement
a strategy to create a new level
of emotional coherence to help
ensure the long-term success of
your organization.
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[ 146 ] From Chaos to Coherence Theres a Virus Loose and Its Got Bob [ 147 ]
of two key executives have people edgy. Before long stock
analysts worry the share price is overvalued, and the company
cannot meet the demand for its technology, so management
brings in a consultant team that says the company needs to
reengineer. But the situation quickly turns critical. After two
consecutive quarters of losses, the Board of Directors steps in
and orders a downsizing. Now everyone feels like they have just
been hit by the fu, but there is no Alka-Seltzer for this sickness.
In an era of corporate chaos, we are now seeing a new phe-
nomenon: the emotional virus. The virus hits its victim organiz-
ations unexpectedly, seemingly without symptoms, until sud-
denly the organism is quite sick and may be in need of radical
surgery. The roots of the sickness are emotional. The virus grows
and thrives on emotional imbalance, insensitivity, and overre-
action in the organization. It is the antithesis of organizational
coherence. The greater the incoherence, the more nutrients the
virus has to feed on.
What Is the Virus?
Doc frst coined the term emotional virus while he was con-
sulting with a CEO who had attended an IQM program in
California. The executive was concerned about the internal
backbiting among several of his management teams, which was
clearly affecting not only morale but also productivity in a key
division. The emotional virus was described this way: It is the
net effect of emotional mismanagement within an organization.
As with other viruses, the emotional virus is highly infectious.
People think it is okay to complain, whine, and sarcastically
laugh about the imbalanced coworker, the stressed out boss
who ignores voice mail or e-mail, the department that just can-
not get its act togethernot realizing they have caught the emo-
tional virus bug.
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Each casual complaint
and unconscious judgment is
like coughing in a coworkers
face, thus spreading the germs
of negative emotions and
creating a caustic, unfulflling
environment. Once an out-
break of the emotional virus
has been detected, the work-
place should be quarantined
until proper medicine arrives,
but that is not the way busi-
ness worksyet.
In evaluating long-term
growth, companies that
spend time and money on
eliminating the emotional
virus will see a big return on
their investment. Ignoring
it and staying on the track of
believing that is just the way
it is is a dangerous move on
the chessboard of future busi-
ness. People are changing
and the knowledge worker of
tomorrow will have a different
set of standards for evaluating
job satisfaction.
This already is hap-
pening. The workforce already
is demanding more harmo-
nious working relationships.
Y
our appropriate use of
judgment and account-
ability as a manager and within
your team or division is crucial.
However, a team permeated with
negative, judgmental attitudes,
constant criticism and blaming,
is a team with limited coherence
and a limited chance for success.
As a manager, start by making
a concerted effort to eliminate
blame concerning the people
you manage. Then, encourage
or even insist, that the people
you manage stop judging and
blaming each other. When you
see it in meetings, in the lunch
room or in the hallways, point it
out, with care. Creating a culture
within your team that supports
each other, offers balanced feed-
back when needed, but stops the
use of blame, is an important
key to team coherence.
BLAME
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
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Salary, although still important, is not as high on the list as it
used to be. Workers often are cashing out, taking less pay
and moving into jobs more in line with their core values. Work-
ing in an environment where people do not stab each other in
the back, where management and employees can have a more
open dialogue, and where the employee feels connected to and
proud of the company and its products are among the career
core values people are adopt-
ing. The emotional virus eats
away at these organizational
qualities and many people are
seeking a place to work where
they do not have to witness
watercooler and break room
character assassinations. It
isnt that people cant take it.
Millions do daily. Times are
changing, however. As Doc
told the CEO, In the name
of smart business, increased
productivity, less employee
turnover and lower health
care cost, the emotional virus
eventually will have to be dealt
with.
The workplace is not the
only location where an emo-
tional virus is on the attack.
Many employees leave home
or community environments
full of viral activity. Without
tools for effective self-manage-
ment, people become drained
demonstrate
sincere appreciation
S
incere appreciation, not
just a cursory or contrived
gesture, is a powerful motivator.
A simple act of appreciating
someone for a job theyve
done, for their commitment,
or for simply being who they
are, adds a boost of energy that
pays big dividends. Managing
often requires giving feedback,
encouraging others to improve
performance, and in some cases
delivering reprimands. Heres
a tip. Always try to express as
much or more sincere appre-
ciation as you do criticism for
the people you manage. Your
employees will appreciate this
and appreciation quickly builds
team coherence.
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
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emotionally because of the increasing pressures in society, fam-
ily life, and their workplace. They are unable to recoup the lost
energy, and the people around them soon become affected or
infected. Like any virus, it spreads quickly if the organizational
immune system already is weak.
The only way we have seen to eliminate the emotional
virus or stop it before it gets out of control is to educate indi-
viduals who make up an organization on how to manage their
thoughts and emotions. It has to come from the individual
change of perspective within the people who make up an orga-
nization. It is usually essential to start right at the top with the
senior management but it can start in a team of line workers
and be highly effective. Just as the emotional virus spreads from
person to person so does the antidote. As people in the orga-
nization, especially the most visible and infuential ones, begin
to actualize change within themselves, others soon will follow
suit or move on to another environment that resonates with
their attitudes. Start by fostering an atmosphere of appreciation.
Do not allow judgments to go on without pointing them out.
Put more care into communication and use heart intelligence to
make decisions, big and small, especially when the decision af-
fects others. There is more but these suggestions, if applied with
sincerity and consistency, at least will save you from becoming
infected and go a long way toward helping your coworkers and
your organization.
There Must Be Someone We Can Blame
Executives like Bob often take the blame for being the carriers
of the virus that has hit the company. And sometimes they are
indeed a major source of incoherence. Witness the unpleasant
public departures of CEOs at Apple three times within fve
years, a company once noted for its innovative vision and peo-
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ple-oriented culture. Or the
blindness of American auto-
makers to their companies
sickness while the Japanese
gained dominance and mar-
ket share. Many business
magazines write gloating
postmortems of once-hot ex-
ecutives, helping their demise
become public. No company
is immune from the emo-
tional virus or its ravages. Yet,
rarely do analysts look at the
emotional coherence of the
organization, so easy is it to
blame missed product dead-
lines, bad decisions, or other
external factors that have a
deeper cause.
It could be tempting to
see the emotional virus as
an isolated phenomenon.
It wont happen here. Re-
consider some of the global
statistics cited earlier. The
sudden collapse of several
Asian economies in 1997
forced a major reexamination of business potentials in that part
of the world while affecting global commerce. What role has
emotional mismanagement greed, unhealthy competition,
and the likeplayed in that drama? Similarly, could many of
the stress-related health care and productivity-related costs of
doing business today in Europe and North America be based,
B
lame is defnitely a lose-
lose strategy. The physio-
logical impact of blame on the
body and the effect it has on
those blamed should be moti-
vation enough to eliminate it.
Since people have unconsciously
created, over a number of years,
neural circuitry that often sup-
ports blaming and judgmental
attitudes, it can take some time
to adjust these patterns. Recog-
nize when youre blaming man-
agement, the system, a client,
a spouse, then shift to neutral
and look for a more balanced
perspective. While the blame
may seem justifed, remember it
actually drains your energy and
inhibits creativity.
#2
BLAME
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
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at least in part, on underlying emotional mismanagement and
organizational structures that ensure a fertile environment for
continued viral growth? We anticipate the situation will worsen
as increasing globalization creates conditions perfect to mutate
new strains of the emotional virus. As with populations that
were isolated for centuries then devastated by disease brought
by their conquerors, few have built the emotional resilience re-
quired to manage unprecedented change and uncertainty. In an
age of connectivity, no one is isolated anymore.
How to Strengthen the Organizational Immune
System
Recent research in human physiology has revealed key aspects
of immune system health with remarkable parallels in orga-
nizational behavior. In the human body, feelings like anger,
frustration, and irritation weaken the immune system and drain
vitality, leaving you more susceptible to colds, fu, and more
serious illnesses. An Institute of HeartMath research study,
1
published in the Journal for Advancement of Medicine, shows
that even a fve-minute episode of recalling an angry expe-
rience can suppress a key component of the immune system
for as long as six hours. This research is showing the converse
is also true: Attitudes like appreciation, care, and compassion
signifcantly boost the immune system, and give you more resil-
ience and strength to withstand sickness (see Figure 91). With
these positive feelings operating in your system, even if you do
get sick, you recover more quickly and recoup lost energy. The
more your system is balanced, the more intuitive insight you are
capable ofintuition that can anticipate problems before they
turn ugly.
Organizations are strikingly similar. Work environments
characterized by excess stress, contention, and anxiety breed
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insecurity and nonproductivity and inhibit creativity. People
do not want to come to work in these rigid, infexible environ-
ments. The negative attitudes compound the pressure on an al-
ready strained organization. The last place most people look for
answers is within; the frst thing many will do is fnd someone
or something to blame, reinforcing the organizational rigidity.
Bobs an easy target.
The same attitudes proven to boost a persons immune
system are the ones known to create a harmonious, productive
and creative workplace. Where people are valued, appreciated
and cared for, they produce more, have greater loyalty to their
employer, and have higher levels of creativity (see Figure 92).
Attitudes like appreciation, care, and compassion are not just
sweet; they are powerful medicine for the virus.
FIGURE 91 Emotions can affect the bodys frst line of defense against
bacteria, viruses, or pathogens. In this study, IgA (secretory immunoglobulin
A), a key immune system antibody, was found to be suppressed for nearly
six hours after a fve-minute period of recalled anger. On the other hand, a
fve-minute period of feeling sincere care caused a signifcant short-term rise
in IgA, and a gradual increase over a six-hour period. Copyright 1998 Institute
of HeartMath Research Center
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How to Spot the Emotional Virus
The challenge in tracking and curing the emotional virus again
is one of perception. Like the fsh growing up in the Hudson
River, assuming the polluted water was real water, many of
the symptoms of the emotional virus are so prevalent, there
seems no alternative, or they seem invisible, so maladapted are
FIGURE 92 Attrition improvements. A summary of improving employee
attitudes in three companies utilizing the IQM technology. Data refects
responses to questions on home and work confict, desire to leave the or-
ganization, desire to quit the job, and feeling good about the job. Data
was collected over six months, showing a signifcant improvement in all
measures. For each category, three bars represent pre-data, post-data (six
weeks), and post-post-data (six months). Copyright 1998 Institute of HeartMath
Research Center
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we to their effects. Common symptoms include:
Caustic humor
Constant stream of complaints
Defeatism
Resentment
Us vs. them mentality
Suspicion
Frequent communication breakdowns
Ongoing fatigue or an overrushed pace of work
Anxiety, fear, intolerance, resignation, antagonism, despair
All these symptoms can be seen, heard, and felt in lunch-
rooms, around the coffee machine, by the copier, in mail rooms
and boardrooms, and around the dinner table. Early detection
and prevention is the best insurance policy.
Climate
How does your workplace feel? Dynamic, energized, a magnet
for talent? Frantic, rushed, burning people out? Downbeat,
discouraged, rats leaving a sinking ship? Most of us intuitively
understand that the climate of ones workplace has an impact
on how people feel and on how they perform. In using the term
climate, we refer to the collective atmosphere of a workplace:
the attitudes, perceptions, and dynamics that affect how people
perform on a daily basis. Climate, like the weather, is not static
and unchanging. Nevertheless, as with any locale, certain cli-
mate patterns are unique to each organization. More important,
unlike the weather, we all are involved in creating our organiza-
tional climate on a daily basis.
For almost a century researchers have explored the causes
of work-related injuries, a major cost to any organization and
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one of the earliest measures of organizational incoherence. At
frst, it was believed certain employees were more accident
prone than others, but studies failed to support this contention
as a defnitive personality trait. Research then shifted to uncov-
ering the personality traits that differentiated workers who were
hurt from those who avoided injury. Looking into the psychol-
ogy of safety became essential as organizations such as OSHA
and the National Safety Board in the United States determined
that 90% of all accidents are caused by unsafe acts, while only
10% are caused by unsafe working conditions.
2
The vast majority of workers today are employed in non-
manufacturing jobs, where workplace safety concerns focus
more around issues such as ergonomics, workload, and mental
and emotional processes, as opposed to the heavy labor of our
forefathers. Yet workers compensation claims are soaring in
many nonmanufacturing sectors of the economy. And health,
safety, and environmental issues are growing in importance,
especially in industries such as technology, petroleum, and avi-
ation, where disregard for these issues can be catastrophic.
According to Dr. Phil Smith, an organizational psychologist
working in the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, a review of 61
studies of job burnout concludes that
of the three facets of burnoutemotional exhaustion, depersona-
lization and diminished personal accomplishmentemotional
exhaustion is most sensitive to factors which negatively infuence
workplace climate, and is the strongest predictor of attachment
to the organization. Interestingly, job stressors such as role stress,
workload and role confict have a disproportionate impact on emo-
tional exhaustion, not equaled by the relief provided by resources
such as social support, job enhancement and reward structure. This
implies that attempts to compensate for the effects of stressful work
environments by the provision of additional resources may not be
successful.
3
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Dr. Smith goes on to suggest that, While a good emotional cli-
mate is not by itself suffcient to ensure success, a bad climate is
certain to prevent it.
The Brown and Leigh Study
Underlying the inner quality management model is the under-
standing that your effectiveness in anything you attemptca-
reer, marriage, relationships, funis based on activating the
most intelligent perceptions of yourself, your environment, and
those with whom you interact. Most of us would agree with this.
Research showing a direct, measurable link between ones per-
ception of the climate of ones workplace and ones own perfor-
mance has been lacking, however. A ground-breaking study by
Steven P. Brown and Thomas V. Leigh, published in 1996 in the
Journal of Applied Psychology, sought to investigate the process
by which workplace climate is related to employee involvement,
effort, and performance.
4
A refreshing aspect of the study was
that the researchers chose 178 salespeople in three different
companies as the test subjects. Sales results were monitored
and correlated with the studys predictions, providing a bottom-
line context for the study outcomes.
Based on numerous previous studies, Brown, a professor
at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University,
and Leigh, a professor at the Terry College of Business at the Uni-
versity of Georgia, designed their study to examine six dimensions
of a workplaces psychological climate (see Figure 93):
5
Supportive management. The extent to which people feel
supported by their immediate manager.
Clarity. The degree of clarity about what is expected of an
individual.
Contribution. The feeling that ones contribution is worth-
while.
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Recognition. The feeling that ones contribution is recog-
nized and appreciated.
Self-expression. Feeling free to question the way things are
done.
Challenge. The feeling that ones work is challenging.
Each of these was considered to be an indicator of how
psychologically safe and meaningful the employee/salesperson
perceived the organizational environment to be. The dimen-
sions build on the work of the past century in linking job satis-
faction and specifc organizational outcomes.
The 178 salespeople, one group of which represented a
paper goods manufacturer and the others represented offce
products companies, were surveyed on these six aspects of their
managers attitudes and the workplace climate. The salespeople
in turn were measured by their managers on three dimensions
of work performance: achieving sales objectives, extent of tech-
FIGURE 93 Brown and Leigh study of organizational climate. Source:
Reprinted with permission from Steven P. Brown and Thomas V. Leigh, A
New Look at Psychological Climate and Its Relationship to Job Involvement,
Effort and Performance, Journal of Applied Psychology, 81, no. 4 (1996),
pp. 35868.
Climate boosts performance
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nical knowledge, and administrative performance.
The study results were signifcant and supported the re-
searchers predictions: An organizational climate perceived by
employees as psychologically safe and meaningful positively af-
fects productivity. This occurs when
Management is perceived as supportive.
Work roles are well-defned.
Employees feel free to express and be themselves.
Employees feel that they are making a meaningful contri-
bution.
Employees are appropriately recognized for their contri-
bution.
Employees perceive their work as challenging.
Then, employees are more involved in their job and exert
greater effort.
6
This leads to measurable improvement in sales,
administrative performance, and product knowledge. (De-
scribed later is a way to measure and productively address these
aspects of climate.)
Ignoring the Climate
The health consequences of ignoring the workplace climate
was researched in a long-term study of British civil servants.
The study indicated that employees with little control over their
working environment face a signifcantly higher risk of heart dis-
ease than those with authority to infuence their job conditions.
Our research suggests that illness in the workplace is to some
extent a management issue, says Michael G. Marmot, director
of the International Centre for Health and Society at University
College in London and lead author of the report.
7
The way work
is organized appears to make an important contribution to the
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link between socioeconomic status and heart-attack risk, he
adds. The study, which tracked nearly 7,400 men and women in
London civil-service jobs for an average of more than fve years,
found that those in low-grade positions with little control over
their responsibilities were at a 50% higher risk of developing
symptoms of coronary heart disease than those in higher level
jobs. Since 1992, the United Kingdom has made companies li-
able for employee stress. Numerous lawsuits brought by em-
ployees against employers who created stressful environments
have been won. Similar legislation in the United States so far has
been blocked. In the highly litigious American culture, one can
imagine the economic and social chaos that would be wrought
by such legal actions. Liability issues aside, organizations the
world over must deal on a daily basis with the consequences of
unhealthy climates.
Assessing Organizational Coherence:
The Organizational Coherence Survey
Building on the considerable organizational research of the
past 100 years, the Institute has developed a survey instrument
that carefully assesses how employees feel about their organi-
zational climate. The Organizational Coherence Survey,
8
cre-
ated jointly by Edgecumbe Consulting Group Ltd. (UK) and the
Institute of HeartMath, gives management focused information
on the state of the organizational climate and how to improve it.
Edgecumbes chairman, Dr. David Pendleton, an organizational
psychologist and codeveloper of the survey, says,
There is an increasing body of evidence that coherent organizations
do better than their misaligned counterparts. They outperform the
market and bring out the best in their people. We believe that they
outperform their competitors because they bring out the best in their
people. They certainly gain clear and predictable advantage because
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they are more effciently coordinated. In the public sector, they pro-
vide consistently superior service to their constituents.
9
The survey is designed to provide insights into the extent
to which an organization is coherent. Pendleton views coher-
ence as
the state in which those features that are considered important
by the stakeholders are performed to a high standard in the orga-
nization. It is the consistency between expectations and reality that
goes beyond mere alignment, a buzzword of the 80s and 90s.
Aligned organizations may consistently implement norms that do
harm to their people. Coherent organizations are aligned around
norms that bring out the best in people at work.
10
Organizations usually do not become incoherent by delib-
erate actions. They usually are not sabotaged into an incoherent
state, nor do most managers act maliciously. They are under-
mined by subtle factors that are easily ignored or missed in the
high speed world experienced in most organizations. The survey
is designed to act as an early detection mechanism and identify
how appropriate actions may be taken. A unique aspect of the
surveys design is that questions are asked two ways: How do
you feel about the issue? and How important is it to you to feel
good about it? The distinction between importance and current
feelings shows the gap between expectations and reality and the
sources of organizational noise and incoherence. The emotional
virus lives and thrives in the gap between expectations and per-
ceived reality.
Content
The survey investigates how the respondents are feeling in gen-
eral. It seeks to determine the extent to which they enjoy their
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work, feel motivated, feel (un)stressed, feel valued, feel proud
to be a member of their organization, and feel committed to it.
It also asks how they feel when they have fnished a typical day.
These outcomes represent their responses to how they are treat-
ed at work, and how they feel about their experiences there.
The six topics explored in the Organizational Coherence
Survey (see Figure 94) are as follows:
1. Taking care of business. The extent to which each key
group of employees takes care of the interests of its cus-
tomers, staff members, and shareholders.
2. A sense of well-being at work. How people feel in their
workplace.
3. Relationships at work. How people feel about their rela-
tionships with key individuals and groups.
4. Managing people. The style of management that brings
out the best in the employees surveyed and sustains their
efforts in the longer term.
5. Managing the organization. How people feel about the
balance between their work effort and the rewards they
receive.
6. The working climate. How people feel working for their
particular manager (this topic investigates the six dimen-
sions explored in the Brown and Leigh study).
Once the information is clear on how the organization
perceives itself and its management practices and behaviors,
clear priorities can be established and action plans built for
continuous improvement. Many organizations do annual or
biannual employee satisfaction surveys. Because most such
surveys ask only how employees feel, while neglecting to ask the
importance, the information is far less focused and meaningful.
One client is a rapidly growing company within a large
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health care organization. Rapid growth meant new systems
and processes were required that had been unnecessary when
the company was small and entrepreneurial. Rapid growth also
meant lots of hiring, so the unique West Coast culture of inno-
vation and friendliness began to be diluted. The strain in the
company was showing up in declining employee satisfaction
scores. In 1995, an outsider was named VP of marketing while
the popular previous VP assumed a larger role. The new VP was
greeted with mistrust and suspicion, and satisfaction scores in
marketing plummeted. Hoping to turn around the decline in
her organization and uncover the emotional virus, the VP asked
us to provide the Organizational Coherence Survey to pinpoint
the areas of incoherence and fnd the virus. Several parallels with
their own employee satisfaction survey were found, allowing for
FIGURE 94 Organizational coherence survey. All items within each of
the six topics are plotted in a scattergram format, yielding information on
priority and importance. Depending on where in the graph each item falls,
it can be characterized as fx, celebrate, ignore, or question.
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targeted discussions and solutions. Six months later, satisfaction
survey scores had doubled or tripled, even though it had been a
period of signifcant turbulence
in the department. Along the
way, the company saw rev-
enues increase to record levels
and market share increase,
while the top priority in mar-
keting and customer service
had become organizational
climate.
The survey was not
administered in isolation.
Marketing and customer service
staff members were trained in
IQM tools, the tools became
integrated in staff meetings and
performance reviews, and a
coaching series was initiated for
managers. The Organizational
Coherence Survey is designed
for continuous feedback.
After an initial survey of the
entire organization or division,
representative samples
are frequently testedsay,
every three monthsso the
information is kept current
and feedback to employees can
happen quickly.
The assumption, too,
is that employees must be
how do you
create a start-up
climate?
T
he lure of a start-up is not
only stock options and
IPO wealthits the climate of
challenge, fun, risk-taking, be-
ing part of something new, and,
especially, feeling you can re-
ally make a difference. Larger
technology companies who have
traditionally been magnets for
talentlike Microsoft, Sony
or Ciscoare fnding growth
has made them big, with all
the problems that implies. In-
novative managers are now
realizing they need to create a
start-up environment to attract
or retain great people. To pull it
off requires autonomy, account-
ability, and more than a little
chutzpah. How could your com-
pany or division have the spunk
and energy of a start-up, with
the maturity and wisdom youve
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[ 164 ] From Chaos to Coherence
given tools to manage their perceptions and emotional reactions
so they become active creators of a healthier climate, not just
victims of management whims. Analyzing organizational
incoherencewhile giving employees practical tools for
managing and leveraging their emotional and intellectual
processesrepresents a powerful parallel approach to regaining
organizational vitality.
But the work on climate should not rely solely on
information and perceptions from within. Your customers, your
key partners and your major vendors are also interacting with
your organization. Theyre experiencing frsthand the effects of
a virus, or hopefully being delighted to do business with such a
healthy, resilient organization. Do you know how each of these
constituents would rate your climate, or what suggestions they
could make to create more coherence? Conversationsdeep
and ongoingwith each of these groups can be like a fresh
breeze into a stale or dark atmosphere. At times the feedback is
liable to feel like thunder and lightning. But the electricity could
be just the energy needed to wake up a sleepy town.
By the way, Bob sends his regards. Hes on a beach in Maui
exploring his options.
09 CH 9 FCTC.ID 01/05/04, 4:19 PM 164
c h a p t e r
10
Core Values: The
Foundation of Sustainability
With the demise of the myth of job security, the accel-
erating pace of change, and the increasing ambiguity and
complexity of our world, people who depend on external
structures to provide continuity and stability run the very
real risk of having their moorings ripped away. The only
truly reliable source of stability is a strong inner core and
the willingness to change and adapt everything except
that core. JAMES C. COLLINS AND JERRY PORRAS
1
UNSWERVING AT THE COREREMAINING TRUE TO ONES
heartis the prerequisite to building resilience and fexibility
mentally, emotionally, and physically. The model of coherence
suggests that coherence at the heart of a system, personal or or-
ganizational, is the foundation for rapid shifts in effectiveness,
growth, and motivation. Our research into human effciency,
performance and fulfllment has yielded this conclusion, the
third principle of Dynamic 3:
Shared core values such as adaptability, fexibility, care,
and appreciation underlie sustainable organizational
cultures.
Core Values as a Foundation
As we and others have delved deeply into the common prin-
ciples and best practices of great companies, that search has
[ 165 ]
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[ 166 ] From Chaos to Coherence Core Values: The Foundation of Sustainability [ 167 ]
refect on, and feel,
your core values
T
hese are the values that
truly matter, not the New
Years resolution variety. These
are the values that sustain you in
times of crisis or tragedy. Start
the day by remembering what
really matters to youyour aims
in life. When you remain con-
nected with your core values,
your life will more readily refect
them. Developing your core val-
ues through increasing levels of
self-care and care for others will
impact the quality of your life
and your contribution to life.
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
yielded a common conclusion. At the heart of all successful
organizationsand indeed successful peopleis a set of frmly
held core values for which the organization feels passion. These
values, more than just profts or the thrill of competition, are the
source of the organizations creative energy. Business leaders
and their organizations need to make sure that as business strat-
egies change, adapt, and morph into new activities uniquely
suited to the time and the market, core values and purpose re-
main stable and protected.
It is no different personally. When we are fulflled, it is be-
cause of coherence between the values of our hearts and the
actions we carry out in our professional and family lives. While
our relationships will vary de-
pending on the depth of trust,
love, and commitment, the
corethe heartout of which
we act does not change. In fact,
the more consistently we act
from our core values, the more
the intelligence of these values
unfolds, increasing our abil-
ity to adapt intelligently to the
world around us.
Indeed core values are
powerful because they are the
embodiment of intelligent op-
erating principles for our lives
or our organizations. Values as
intelligence may be a new twist
on this fundamental principle,
and yet each of us could see
how the values we hold most
dear indicate the direction
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for a highly intelligent use of our energy. Intelligent not in the
context merely of being intellectually astute, but in being energy
effcient. Our perceptions are clearer, decisions more balanced,
communication more caring and well-reasoned. Core values do
not lead to mushy actions or sentimentality; they are the bat-
tery chargers for wisdom. We are smarter when in phase with
our core values. As internal coherence increases by becoming
more consistently in phase with the hearts core values, leaps in
perception, creativity, and adaptability are possible. Thats heart
intelligence.
Adaptability Revisited
Why would adaptability be an essential characteristic? Certainly
the pace of change would demand it. According to research
conducted by the authors of The Service-Proft Chain,
2
the clear
differentiator between high and low performing frms, all with
strong cultures, was the ability of each frm to adapt to chang-
ing environments, whether legal, technological, social, or com-
petitive. The authors discovered that the single most important
indicator of adaptability was the adherence by management to
a clear set of core values stressing the importance of delivering
results to various constituencies, especially customers and em-
ployees, as part of an effort to deliver profts to owners. They
concluded:
1. Strong cultures dont win as consistently as adaptable ones,
2. Adaptability is a state of the management mind resulting from a
set of core values that include an emphasis on the importance of
change, and
3. Organizations that vigorously practice these core values and in-
stall devices for maintaining adaptability not only greatly improve
their chances of sustaining high performance over time, they in-
crease their chances of achieving successful transitions from one
leader to another.
3
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The true meaning of adaptability implies healthy adjust-
ments to external factors, as opposed to the maladaptation pro-
cess discussed earlier in the rigidifying way most people react to
stressors. True adaptability is the ability to assess from the mind
and the heartto analyze and feelthen shift attitude and ac-
tion. How we respond to a crisis or unexpected occurrence un-
derpins true adaptability. Adaptability allows speed without the
negative consequences.
The Role of Signifcance
How you adapt to each event of your day is based largely on
the signifcance you ascribe to it. Consider signifcance from an
emotional perspective. How signifcant something becomes is
directly proportional to the amount of emotional energy you as-
sign it. When you feel secure and confdent, unpleasant events
have much less signifcance than when you are emotionally
imbalanced. You see things in perspective. But when operating
at a defcit, the tone of voice, the infection or the implied mes-
sage in a conversation can easily become magnifed in your per-
ception. Then, your internal video machine replays the story
repeatedly while you work yourself up into greater emotional
turmoil. All of this because of the signifcance you placed on the
event.
Certain people overinvest in making things signifcant.
They make a big deal out of nearly everything. From a balanced,
heart-driven perspective people can see more easily how much
of their own vital, precious energy needs to be given to each
daily event. If everything is signifcant it becomes diffcult to not
eventually feel drained and victimized by emotions. People who
do well long term and can handle pressure are often the ones
who naturally are more even keeled. They do not make things
overly signifcant. This does not make them better or worse than
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others, but it is a gift that saves energy and sustains personal
productivity. All of us can learn to take the signifcance out of
things. The concept and practice of taking out the signifcance
is powerful. It seems so simple and it is, but when applied as a
tool or technique the amount of your unnecessary, ineffcient
energy expenditures will decrease signifcantly.
There is a fne line between an attitude of irresponsibil-
ity or simply brushing things off as opposed to intelligently
withdrawing some of the signifcance out of lifes tricky events.
It is intuitive intelligence in action to know how much of your
emotional energy to give to something. Some things are more
important than we at frst perceive, while other things are not
as important as we make them out to be. Overdramatizing and
adding signifcance to anything amplifes it, just like throwing
a log on a fre causes the fre to burn brighter and hotter. Use
heart discrimination to decide what kind of fres you really want
to build.
Taking out the signifcance is an important skill for devel-
oping adaptability. Adaptability is an energetic fexing of our in-
ner muscles when a situation requires extra energy. It builds re-
serves in the system that manifest themselves as more genuine
care. As you learn to take the signifcance out of things that you
know will not serve your best interests, you will see a natural in-
crease in your ability to care.
It is much easier for people to adapt to change when the
environment supports them, as the Brown and Leigh study
implies. However, if your organizational climate clearly is flled
with an emotional virus, it is still in your interest to adapt as fully
as possible, even if that adaptation process involves an intel-
ligent exit from the unhealthy environment. (Being a doormat
for abuse or incoherence is not the intelligent insight of truly
caring perspectives.) This is as true at the individual level as
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at the team or organizational level when faced with unhealthy
competition, unethical practices, or attitudes that contradict
your deeply held core values. Adaptability in this context, espe-
cially, requires centering ever more deeply in your core values
and, from that position of strength and wisdom, determining
the most energy-effcient, coherent response possible.
Organizational life today is full of such bombardment that
true adaptability rests on your ability to heartfully adapt to all
the mini-crises and disturbances, using heart intelligence as
an inner guidance system. This can be as simple as stopping
long enough to ask yourself, What is the best way to adapt to
this situation, for the good of all involved? Your heart, if asked,
can supply surprising wisdom. When you learn to adapt by be-
coming internally coherent, you can discover more coherent
solutions.
Learning to take the signifcance out of situations that re-
ally are minor blips on the screen saves energy for those issues
of real signifcancethe core values and viability of you and
your organization. With unnecessary signifcance kept to a min-
imum, the energy to adapt, fex, and innovate is maximized.
Care
A basic human instinct is to care. In our work, we have seen that
care is central to personal or organizational effectiveness, when
balanced with effciency:
Effciency + Care = Effectiveness
Consider this simple equation both personally and or-
ganizationally. Biomedical research cited in the last chapter
suggests that feeling sincere care for something or someone
actually boosts immune system function, as measured by the
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antibody IgA. A study by Harvard psychologist David McClel-
lan and C. Kirshnit in 1988
4
showed that inducing the feeling
of care could boost levels of IgA, the bodys frst line of defense
against pathogenic invaders such as viruses or bacteria. Clearly,
care is a good investment of energy. You receive a payoff for you
when you care, beyond just being nice. Care is rejuvenating for
both the giver and receiver. It acts like a lubricant on mental,
emotional, and physical levels, increasing adaptability mentally,
emotionally, and physically.
Here we present one of the prime personal and organiza-
tional challenges in this age of transition: Care is its own reward,
as poets and philosophers have said for centuries. Whether or
not the other person sees your actions as caring, by adapting
to stress through the heart, you have saved untold amounts
of energy, potentially saved a decision that could have proven
costly to the organization, and stopped an emotional and phys-
iological drain in your own system.
Reviving the Corporate Heart
The research cited in the last chapter revealed organizational
benefts of caring. Consider how you and your organization
could apply care to the six dimensions of climate:
Recognition
Clarity
Contribution
Supportive management
Self-expression
Challenge
Even asking the questions would be an act of caring, but be pre-
pared to follow through sincerely on the responses or the efforts
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will backfre, being viewed cynically as yet another example of
management paying lip service to employee perceptions and
concerns, with no intention of acting on them.
A practical application for caring in the workplace is to ask
your managers to have their people assess their own assets and
defcits on each of the six dimensions of climate, then discuss
with them key patterns in the feedback and how to best address
them. Do the same yourself with those who report to you or, if
you do not manage others, with your closest colleagues. Discuss
in your next staff meeting how your department or division, as
well as the organization as
a whole, stacks up on each
dimension. By evaluating
defcits and assets you can un-
derstand what areas require
attention, while appreciating
those areas deserving appre-
ciation and celebration. This
activity can lead to a sense of
excitement and pride as you
recognize what is good in the
climate you have all created.
Sincere appreciation builds
a solid foundation for future
growth.
Sincere Care
Underlying the application of
care in your workplace is sin-
cerity. Without sincerity car-
ing acts ring hollow. Sincere
care is required to achieve a
merger
mayhem
Y
ou dont need more
statistics to know many
mergers succeed only on the
pre-merger spreadsheet. Just
ask any merged employee who
has seen their budget, their
authority, and their internal net-
works freeze as the merger sets
in. Most often, a fundamental
clash of values is at the root of
the turmoil. The promised busi-
ness effciencies may eventually
result, but at what cost? Cultural
integrationconnecting in the
heartmay be the only life pre-
server if the culture collision is
too extreme.
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true service attitude with people. When care is mechanical or
insincere, it causes resistance and reaction in others, undermin-
ing adaptability. Coworkers, family, clients, and superiors can
tell the difference between required courtesy and sincere care.
Put simply, it is much easier to adapt healthfully to unpleasant
or unexpected circumstances when we feel our workplace or so-
cial environment is caring. Care is the glue that keeps relation-
ships together once the novelty has worn off. This is as true in
organizational life as in the personal domain.
Tom Peters has echoed this point:
Store shelves groan under the weight of new products, but few have
heart. Service offerings are about as lifeless. Most hotels, for ex-
ample, spent the last decade buffng their customer service. The me-
chanics are better. Bravo. But the heart is usually absent: the sincere
sense of Welcome to my home as opposed to Ive gotta remember
to act like I care.
5
The Mandarin Oriental Hotel in San Francisco is different.
An award-winning hotel in the heart of San Franciscos fnancial
district, it has consistently provided exceptional value and ser-
vice to its guests since opening in the late 1980s. And yet like any
other high performing organization, management recognized
its staff members were being held to ever-higher standards
while facing greater personal pressures as societal stress in-
creased. IQM tools were instituted at all levels of the hotel staff
to help ensure a high level of balance of personal and profes-
sional effectiveness. At the Mandarin, there is an understanding
that care for oneself and for colleagues goes hand in hand with
exceptional care for customers.
Caregiverswhether social workers, health care profes-
sionals, or counselorsare at their best when providing the kind
of support that makes it easier for the patient to adapt to and re-
cover from the illness, injury, or personal setback. The caregiv-
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ers themselves, however, must learn when the care is enhancing
their own and others adaptability and when it is detracting. A
1990 study
6
on caregiving among nurses observed that caring
did not lead to burnout but it was the lack of caring or overcar-
ing that did. The study reported that caring itself allows nurses
to access a very important source of energy and renewal. When
nurses became overly emotionally identifed with the plight of
their patients, their care turned to burnout. Whether your job
involves caring for patients, caring for customers, or requires
extra care in times of high stress and pressure, keeping your
care balanced and rejuvenating requires vigilance and close at-
tention. This is one of the greatest challenges in an age of chaos
and complexity. When care depletes, it becomes overcare.
The Drain of Overcare
Overcaring is caring that crossed the line into anxiety and worry,
ceased to be nurturing for the giver and receiver, and is close to
the top of the list of personal and organizational energy drains.
Overcaring begins as caring, but because of unmanaged emo-
tions such as unrealistic expectations, emotional attachment, or
mental preoccupation, the caring becomes tainted and dimin-
ished in its effectiveness. In the extreme, overcaring is debili-
tating for all concerned, driving a wedge between you and the
object of your overcaring. Clear examples of overcaring would
be these:
The micro-manager who must have a hand in every detail
of his division, causing stress and ineffciency in those he
supervises, and confning himself to a self-created en-
vironment of obsessive mental activity, cut off from the
nourishing power of the heart.
The parent who hovers over a sick child, creating an en-
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vironment not of caring support but of overbearing in-
trusion.
Overcaring is tricky because, in our achievement-oriented
society, the only alternative to overcaring seems to be uncar-
ing or apathy. The truth is that overcaring is so emotionally and
physically draining, chronic overcaring eventually leads to not
caring. But there is a healthy, balanced alternative. The chal-
lenge is to identify overcaring early on and utilize heart intelli-
gence to determine a more balanced and caring response.
A simple question can help distinguish caring from its kiss-
ing cousin overcaring: Is my care stress producing or stress re-
ducing? If it is overcaring, you will sense stress in your system;
if balanced caring, you will experience more contentment and
peace.
Identifying Overcare
Overcare is defned not by the specifc behavior or action but
by the underlying attitude. This often is experienced as ongoing
anxiety and concern, which may briefy subside in moments of
appreciation but continues to drain energy and occupy our at-
tention. While there are no pat rules for what actions are over-
caring and what are caring, here are some examples. Working
overtime to complete a project is not always driven by overcare;
it could be an act of true caring, so long as the internal attitude
was not fueled by worry and fear. How much more energized
do you feel by any project when you are positively motivated
to complete it instead of fearing the consequences of its lack of
completion? When worry or fear is the fuel, you still may com-
plete the project in the allotted timemaybe even fasterbut
at a signifcant cost to your health and balance on all levels.
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Similarly, failing to address a diffcult employee issue could be
the result of overcaring about how the employee might react.
The caring action would be to ask the heart for a clear perspec-
tive on the situation and how to most effectively resolve the sit-
uation for the good of all concerned. A reminder: the effects of
these stressful, overcaring behaviors do not just go poof! and
disappear. They live on in our bodies as diminished vitality and
the emotional memories of the overcaring events that replay
themselves.
In our work with organizational clients, we continuously
ask ourselves if the something extra we think we should do for
the client truly adds value or if it is just going to add stress to us
and provide nothing benefcial to the client. Keeping overcaring
in check is a tremendous energy saver, with the added beneft
that the effect of care on clients, customers, and staff members
is increased signifcantly. In staff meetings we ask each other
what areas of overcare we have around workload, deadlines, or
performance, then get help to diminish the load or explore new
perspectives on the reality of the pressures. Stopping overcare
in its tracks frees up tremendous energy that allows you, or
your team, to jump to a whole new level of effciency and effec-
tiveness that translates into improved business results.
How easy it is to spend hours watching an internal movie
of possible horrifc future scenarios, all the result of overcaring!
If they fail to manifest themselves, we still have aged our bodies
in the hours or days or weeks we spent overcaring. Clearly, not
an effcient investment of energy. But, once again, the healthy
alternative to overcaring is not apathy but rather balanced car-
ing. It is incumbent on us as leaders, managers, or parents to
take seriously potential threats to the health and safety of our
organization or our loved ones. Overcaring can be the wake-up
call that a new perspective and action are necessary to deal with
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a potential threat. However, once overcaring is recognized, we
would do well to adapt our attitude, neutralize our stress re-
action, then proceed with whatever balanced caring would be
appropriate.
Overcaring blocks effectiveness, person-
ally and professionally. It is noise that distorts clear
communication, whether you are the receiver or the transmitter.
It limits our ability to satisfy internal or external customers or be
as productive and fulflled as we can be. The good news is that
all overcaring starts out as caring, but unmanaged emotions
dilute the caring and keep us stuck in perspectives that tend
to perpetuate the overcaring. The challenge is to bring the car-
ing back into balance. Overcaring creates the breeding ground
for actions and attitudes that will self-fulfll the underlying
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overcaring. Overcaring breeds more overcaring. Unchecked, over-
caring can lead to reactions and attitudes that allow the emo-
tional virus to thrive.
What examples of overcare in yourself or others can you
think of? Take a moment and list a few key examples of overcare
in your life. Then, recognize the current effect on you, the other
person, your energy level, effectiveness, health, and so on. One
of the most powerful tools for neutralizing overcaring is Freeze-
Frame. Most overcaring is
just one attitude adjustment
away from a caring, balanced
attitude and action, but with-
out stopping and consulting
the heart, the answers easily
can evade your awareness. Use
Freeze-Frame to ask yourself
how to bring the overcaring
back into balance and uncover
intelligent alternatives.
Jobs That Magnetize
Overcare
Certain segments of an orga-
nization are especially vul-
nerable to overcaring, such
as customer service and sales.
Because these positions deal
directly with the customer,
most reps live in a precarious
world of loyalty to two mas-
ters. Caring for both, it is often
hard to discern the appro-
care without
overcare
L
earning how to maintain a
state of balanced care
without falling into the trap of
worry, anxiety, and overload
about your job and/or the people
you manage is essential. Care is
regenerative. Overcare drains
your energy and compromises
your effectiveness as a manager
while at the same time negatively
impacting the people you man-
age. Make an effort to identify
your overcares. Then, use the
Freeze-Frame technique to elim-
inate these overcares and bring
yourself back to balanced care.
Take things one step at a time
and appreciate your successes.
G
e
t
C
o
he
r
e
n
t
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priate actionlook after the needs of the customer or look after
the company? The pat answer would be that in taking care of the
customer the company will be taken care of. In a general sense,
this is true, but when an irrational or out-of-control customer is
in your face, such a perspective lacks credibility and practical-
ity. In the real world, people get upset, expectations are not met,
insecurity is high, and things are said or done that do not refect
the deeper core values of that person. Recognizing, neutralizing,
then moving past the overcaring can bring balanced solutions
or, at least, minimize the drain. Neutralizing any emotional
reaction from a negative interaction with a customerbefore
dealing with the next onehas immediate payoff.
Overcare is a powerful inhibitor of personal and organiz-
ational effectiveness, cloaked as it is in the robes of care and
concern. In many organizational cultures, we are rewarded for
overcaring. Our commitment is questioned if we fail to display
the proper overcare. How dare you leave the offce at 5:00 to
be with your family, dont you care? Why arent you worried
about the production delay, dont you care? Why arent you
anxious about the client presentation, dont you realize the sig-
nifcance of this account? In our extremist, stimulus-addicted
culture, there appears no alternative to chronic, debilitating
overcaring, other than total apathy or self-centeredness. Yet
research on the effects of chronic anxiety or worry on health,
let alone the emotional drain on the organization of constantly
being on edge, should suggest overcaring already is costing us
dearly.
If you manage people, you would do well to examine areas
of overcaring in your management style. Overcaring disempow-
ers others. Overcaring in leaders robs them of the magnetism
necessary to inspire confdence and hope. Overcaring is caring
made incoherent. When people resist change, overcaring ac-
cumulates. As you adapt intelligently to change, that is caring.
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Care regenerates; overcare depletes. When overcaring is rec-
ognized in a team or in yourself, specifc steps can be taken to
regain balanced care.
Self-Care Revisited
A powerful element in the reduction of overcaring and
achievement of organizational adaptability is self-care. In many
cultures, self-care is almost taboo, because the fear is that any
focus on self-care will lead to self-obsession and attitudes
that undermine the collective well-being. The Asian focus on
collective culture makes it challenging to justify the importance
of self-care. American culture by contrast could seem to be self-
indulgent and self-caring to the extreme. And yet, for many,
balanced self-care is nearly nonexistent, going no deeper than
self-medicating with drugs, alcohol, or a once-a-year vacation
that is often stressful, a strain to prepare for, and over far too
quickly. The notion of self-care can conjure up images of
mandatory exercise, no junk food or high-cholesterol meals,
severely restricting or eliminating ingestion of substances
such as alcohol or tobaccoin short, self-care seems to be
self-denial. What we are suggesting is something much more
core to each personthe balanced care of oneself. People take
for granted that children need care to grow and mature, that
plants need regular attention and care to thrive, that pets need
care to be the happy playmates we want them to be. Are you
any different? Deep self-care would mean regular refection on
your core values, assessing where your life lacks coherence and
balance, evaluating how much and in what way you want to
attend to physical healthin short, caring for all the dimensions
of your life. And, if fun is not on the list, good luck not feeling
deprived.
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By focusing self-care in the mental and emotional domains
and achieving balance there through the activation of heart in-
telligence, signifcant jumps in effectiveness can occur. An orga-
nization where self-care is a valued quality is far more resilient
than one that denies its importance. Imagine a car refusing the
offer of a fresh tank of gas!
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18 IHM_ACK_BIOS FCTC.ID 1/5/04, 12:07 PM 262
[ 263 ]
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