Why Manage Your State of Mind?

Challenge Your Thinking

What is your state of mind as your reading this?
Are you tired? Energized? Frustrated? Confident? Bored I hope not!

Our state of mind changes dozens of times throughout the day; a boring meeting, a difficult phone call, an accepted offer, a misunderstanding with a demanding client. We know that all of these things affect our state and, as a result, our performance. But, are we aware of how it affects our co-workers and staff?

As a leader, you can't afford to let your state manage you; you need to manage your state instead. People who work for you tend to mirror, and even magnify, the emotions of their leader positive and negative. If you're confident about a situation, they'll trust things will work out. If you're worried about business performance, they'll fear for their jobs and business will suffer.

Managing your state is not always easy. After all, we're human and have a right to our own feelings be it upset, frustrated or worried. A mentor of mine shared his 5 minute rule with me. You are allowed to get emotional about a situation for 5 minutes, behind closed doors. Then take a deep breath and change your state. Here are some of the ways I've learned to change my state:

Smile

Global Organization Consulting

As the Executive V.P. of Human Resources located in Paris, I had the functional leadership challenge of evolving an existing HR organization into an international team capable of meeting the professional challenges of a changing French global manufacturing business.

Based on the initial geographical challenges we faced, I engaged Norm Gauthier to provide organizational consulting support in the U.S. I knew he was someone I could work with and trust, especially in working remotely with me from Europe. His experience, allowed him to quickly assess what we had, the major challenges we faced, and helped identify step by step what needed to be done. He also helped define the needs in terms of skills and competencies required in building an effective international HR presence.

He used his business consulting experience and knowledge of HR practice to carefully focus on individual and collective development 'gaps' creating conditions that allowed team members to take risks, experience new roles and ...in the end take on more of a leadership position. During this change management process, he took on individual and team coaching assignments in support of several organizational initiatives. He also developed several international train-the-trainer development modules, linking each to the staged development and roll-out of critical management tools.

Results of the work… we now have a worldwide HR organization that uses the same processes and tools despite their location in the world, which is rare for a Global company. Our HR members are recognized by Business Unit management as professionals they involve early in the change process to provide advice and counsel. And, with the focus on developing leadership and accountability at the operational HR management level, the team now exercises a different level of problem solving and collaboration that requires less leadership time and involvement in decision making.

An outstanding work quality that is very effective…Norman respects the fine line between the 'decision maker' and the team - thus creating a challenging environment for the boss and a safe environment for the team to take on initiatives and risk - learning conditions that we needed.

J. Dekker,
Executive V.P., Human Resources Sperian Protection