With a conference table full of high energy, hard-charging Type A personalities, Joe was feeling his head start to swim. He was losing his ability to focus, and his mind was quickly going blank—shut-down mode was quickly approaching.
After 45-minutes of everyone, including Joe, making well-reasoned, passionate arguments for how the unexpected surplus should be spent, the meeting had degenerated into one big fight.
Ideas were no longer being exchanged—instead, the air was now full of sniping, labeling, a lot of bluster, and good-old-fashioned name-calling.
Even though Joe was shutting down, there were others that were charging up, though they were generating far more “heat” than “light”.
People were still talking, sure, but the meeting was really over, and had been over, for the last 10 minutes.
Could this meeting have been salvaged? What would have been necessary for someone to do to keep this meeting from getting so crazy, and at what point would they have needed to do it?
And, how could they have avoided all this drama in the first place?
Whatever intervention would have worked, one thing is absolutely certain: nothing productive could have ever happened without someone in the group taking emotional leadership—being a calm (enough) presence, and “shepherding” the group back to some kind of thoughtful dialogue.
No easy task.
And “emotional leadership” can only be pulled off if we first have a calm mind.
One of the greatest “power tools” we can possess is a calm mind. Too few, though, see the importance of this, or even know what this looks like.
Here’s the deal: when our mind is calm enough, we’re able to do the one thing we need to do to successfully navigate our way through life—THINK!
The calmer our mind is, the more skillfully and effectively we can use this great gift called our brain, and think.
And it’s by our thinking—strong, robust, clear, and fully-engaged—that we solve life’s problems, figure out our direction, decide between various choices, and so forth.
Calm thoughtfulness is the goal for all of us.
The great enemy of a calm mind is anxiety. We experience anxiety when we perceive some sort of threat, real or imagined (it doesn’t matter which).
And if we’re anxious enough, we go into FIGHT OR FLIGHT mode. Once this happens, our effectiveness is shot.
Why? Because we are no longer able to think. The blood from our brains, so to speak, rushes to our extremities, adrenaline pumping, preparing us to take action and deal with the threat.
We don’t need to think when we’re in survival mode, we just need to react (fight or flee) in order to neutralize the threat.
And this very same survival mechanism that can get triggered if we’re confronted by a mugger in a dark alley can also get triggered when we’re in a crazy business meeting.
So, our friend Joe was going into “flight” mode, as evidenced by his shutting down and taking a mental vacation, while a few others in the meeting were clearly in “fight” mode, as evidenced by their, well, fighting.
Fight or flight works well if we’re running away from a tiger or fighting off the neighbor’s crazy dog. It’s a horrible choice, though, for meetings, marriages, and a multitude of other scenarios.
Calm mind vs. anxious, agitated, stressed out mind.
Three questions:
1) How well can you get yourself out of fight/flight, returning yourself to calm thoughtfulness?
2) Do you even recognize when your'e in fight/flight mode?
3) Do you do anything to cultivate a calm mind on an ongoing basis?
We’ll come back to this in the future, with tips and solutions.
Any thoughts? Leave a comment!
--Sean Cox, Chicago