Brought to you by Jeff Thoren, DVM, ACC  

Picture this: From a large group you take six volunteers to another room. You select a trio of the six and, out of earshot of the other three, give them a private communication. You then take the trio back to the whole group and ask them to clean up the front of the room. They are sluggish, uncaring, clumsy, sloppy and slow.

You then give the remaining three volunteers another private communication. You escort them back into the room and also ask them to clean up the front of the room. They attack the task with vigor, divide the labor, go swiftly, and seem proud of their work.

Question: What did you tell each trio? No, it wasn’t to go fast or slow, to be eager or slovenly, to be efficient or inefficient. In fact, you didn’t say anything at all about how to do the job.  Read on for the answer ...

Here’s this month’s feature ...

Self-Esteem: The Key to Productivity by Will Schutz 

The Human Element Web Site

Highlights from the article:

• In the scenario above, your communication to each group was very simple. To the first group you said, “You have very low self-esteem. By that I mean you don’t feel alive, you don’t control your life, you are not aware of yourself, and you feel insignificant, incompetent, and unlikable.” To the second group you said, “You have very high self-esteem. By that I mean you feel alive, in charge of your life, aware of yourself, and you feel significant, competent, and likable.” 
    

• The specific feelings associated with our self-esteem govern a vast amount of behavior. Our self esteem determines morale, efficiency, relationships, and many other important aspects of human functioning.
    

• Self-esteem comes from successfully choosing to be the type of person you want to be. When what you want for yourself matches your self-perception, the result is a positive self-concept, which in turn helps you feel alive, self-determining, self-aware, significant, competent, and likable.
    

• Self-esteem is both conscious and unconscious. It begins in childhood, and it is developed as you create your self-concept through internalizing (or rejecting) messages about you that you receive from your parents and others, and from your own experiences of what you can and cannot do and who you are or are not. We all compare our selves to others, or to an idea of the type of person we want to be, or to others’ definitions of an ideal.
    

• Positive self-esteem is demonstrated by the ability to be flexible, able to express yourself fully, being in charge of yourself, having accurate self-perceptions, and learning to make all of your perceptions conscious.
    

• Self-esteem is at the heart of all human relations and productivity in organizations.  Finding ways to nurture a positive self-concept - i.e. self-esteem - in each individual is the key to increasing productivity and the quality of the workplace.
    

• The goal of the ideal organization is to bring about the greatest self-esteem for the largest number of employees. If all employees have high self-esteem, the organization will inevitably be productive and successful. Note: although the organization cannot give people self-esteem, it can create the conditions within which it is easier for them to enhance their own self-esteem.
    

• Organizational factors that contribute to an atmosphere that fosters the development of individual self-esteem include: participation, freedom, openness, recognition, empowerment, and humanity.

  
For the full text article, go to ...
http://www.thehumanelement.com/Articles/Self-Esteem.pdf

   
Building Productive Teams

Teams don’t fail because they disagree, or because they do not have common goals, or because their members’ approaches to solving problems differ, or because they do or do not include certain personality types. Teams don’t work because one or more team members are rigid, and a person is rigid because his or her self-concept is threatened.

Good teamwork occurs when members ...

1. Are open enough to one another and to themselves to recognize when they are personally threatened.

2. Are willing to acknowledge those feelings to the whole team. 

Here are some behaviors to practice to improve your self esteem and enhance both leadership and teamwork:

1. Envision your ideal self. Remember that you are constantly choosing the way you want to be.

2. Accept responsibility for everything happening in your life.

3. Tell your truth. Be open at all times about your feelings and ideas.  Keep no secrets from yourself or others.

4. Seek deeper self-awareness. Tune in to what is motivating you and what you are feeling at every moment.

5. Give up blame, postpone judgment, listen, and understand before defending, attacking, or seeking to make others wrong. Assume that all team members are on the same side, trying to produce the best solutions to the team’s challenges.

6. Question your limiting beliefs. Be aware that any time you tell yourself that you can’t do something, you are right.

7. Be in touch with your body, listen for ever present cues.

8. Treat your growth and yourself with respect and patience, rather than irritation and judgment. Maintain a larger perspective of developing at your own pace and along your own unique path.

In an interesting irony, if we want to improve team performance, we must start with ourselves.

 
Next Month

True transparency is rare. Many individuals and organizations pay lip service to values of openness and candor, but too often these are hollow promises. Claiming to be transparent is not the same as being transparent, so what is transparency and what does it really look like in practice?

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