​Learning to recognize unproductive worry will help you eliminate stress that you are manufacturing for reasons you can’t control.

When you find yourself worried about something, ask yourself:
1. Are you worrying about something that doesn’t have an answer?
2. Are you making up a chain of events?
3. Are you looking for the perfect outcome?
4. Do you feel like you overlooked something?
5. Are you trying to control everything?
 
In this episode, we talk about how to identify unproductive worry and turn it into productive worry by taking a few simple steps.

Great Customer Experience is something that a lot of companies aspire to, but not a lot of companies achieve. And, as we know, it is the people within the company that create the experience for their customers, so you have a direct impact on the success of your company.
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There is a subtle difference between Customer Service and Customer Experience, but it is an important one. In this episode, we look at the difference and look at a recent experience I had with a company. I called Customer Service to get a piece of equipment returned, but it was the Customer Experience that left an impression with me. 

Have you ever had a bad day, where it seemed like each little thing that happened pushed you further and further toward the edge of the cliff and then eventually – BAM – you were over the edge?

Its happened to all of us. But, what I’ve noticed is that some people reach that edge much more quickly than others. Some people are able to recover much more quickly than others.
Why is that?

I believe that it partially has to do with the amount of reserve the person has.

Here is a simple example:
You have $32 to your name. When the car all of a sudden stops starting and you find out it will cost $500 to fix it, that is a lot of stress. You had no reserve – in this case, of money – to be able to handle the stress.

If, instead, you had $,1000 in the bank and you had the same issue – it may still be stressful, but it doesn’t send  you over the edge. You had a bigger reserve, which means that your better able to deal with the stress of the event as well as recover from it.

​The idea of reserve doesn’t just apply to money. You also need a reserve of:

• Time
• Space
• Relationships

​Listen to our episode on creating a North Start List

​One of the most important ways you can influence others is by building rapport with them. And, the way you build rapport is to understand the lens that they see the world through. The more you know about how people approach their world, the better able you are to reach them.

​And, this starts with understanding your own lens. One of the ways you can do this is to understand your personality traits. There are several personality traits assessments available – all of them have their own approach, but all of them have value in helping you understand the differences between people.
In this episode, we dive into one of the oldest personality trait assessments, the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. 

This is the final episode in our series on the 5 components of change. If you missed the others, start here.

One of the things that we’ve tried to emphasize is that you are responsible for your own adoption of the change. We continue that theme in this episode – forming a new habit and making the change stick as part of your everyday routine are the final components of change.

Anytime we encounter a change, it knocks us off our routine, which means that we are likely to take a hit to our productivity. Your responsibility is to recognize that you will likely take a productivity hit, and make whatever adjustments are necessary to accommodate the change.

It may be a mental adjustment—giving yourself permission to be frustrated, but knowing that it will eventually pass as the change becomes your new routine.
It may also be a physical adjustment—recognizing that something is going to take more time than it used to because you are having to learn a new process or routine, and building in extra time to get things done.

You also have responsibility to go after answers to questions that come up that weren’t addressed as part of the training.
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By taking an active role in the change, you are ensuring your success.

Knowledge is the 3rd component of change, and it is what most people think of when they think of change management - giving the people who need to make a change the information necessary to make the change. It typically takes the form of training.

Your responsibility in this component of change is to make sure you are giving it the attention it deserves. If training is provided, you need to take responsibility to attend it and pay attention. This isn’t always easy because we are all busy. But, your role is to make sure you make the time necessary to get the knowledge you need in order to adopt the change. Without this knowledge, you can’t be successful.

Miss the first 2 episodes in this series?
Components of Change: Awareness

Components of Change: Desire

Every person has their own desire to accept any given change. This means that a single change communicated to a group of people will automatically have different responses by each person in the group. Some will adopt it easily, some will resist. The important thing to remember is that the desire to adopt the change may or may not have anything to do with the change itself.

Your desire to accept a change is within your control. It is your responsibility to get your desire to adopt the change from wherever you are to acceptance. That means you’ve got to put in the work to get yourself there. You’ve got to figure out why you are resistant.

If you need more answers, go get them.

If you need training, find out when the training will be held.

And, if you can’t get yourself to the point where you accept the change, then figure out what the next step needs to be. In extreme examples, it might mean moving on.

Get your free copy of 4 Things You Can Do To Improve Your Acceptance Of Change  

We are all impacted by change. Some of them we accept easily, others, not-so-much. But, even if it isn’t a change you are excited about, you can make the whole process better for yourself by understanding the components of change and coming up with a process for dealing with change that works well for you. I believe that one of the most overlooked components of change is the fact that it is very personal.

​Over the course of 4 episodes, we are going to dive into the components of change, and in this episode, we start where is all begins, Awareness.

One of the most important skills you can develop is your ability to influence people. And, influencing people is tricky, because your natural tendency is to think that it is within your control. But, that isn’t the case. The decisions they make about you are theirs, not yours.

For example, if I say that I own a Prius, what conclusions do you draw about me?
You might think that I’m a tree hugging hippie and that I must be bleeping vegetarian.
Or, you might think that I’m an environmental activist, living in a way that minimizes my impact on the environment, living the ideals that we should all strive for.

But, in either case, that is your conclusion, not mine. You have no idea why I drive a Prius. You don’t know anything about what motivated me to make that decision.
So, when you and I interact, how you see me – as a tree hugging hippie or as an environmental champion will impact the interaction.
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This episode examines the filters that we bring to our interactions with others and how we can understand them in order to improve our relationships.

​Each of us has a set of processes that we follow every day in order to accomplish our job. The longer you are in your job, the more proficient you get at each process. But, you can be the most proficient person at the process, and it could still be a problem.
Why?
Each process is a part of a bigger system. No matter how efficient each process is, if it doesn't work well within the system that it is a part of, there could still be problems.
You are more valuable to your company if you can look at the system as a whole rather than just your process within the system.
 
Systems are typically:
· Cross functional (cross departmental)
· Made up of many processes
· Spanning many different disciplines
 
The best way for you to improve your understanding of a system is to look at a process that you are a part of and then look backward to determine the processes that impact you and look forward to determine the processes that you impact.