I recently went to the police station to be fingerprinted as a requirement for a volunteer project I am working on and on the way home, I saw a man driving a small electric car. When I saw the car, I assumed one of his objectives for buying it was to leave less of a carbon imprint. This got me thinking about imprints... What if we were to consciously craft and design the imprint, the “finger print” we desire on the world? How would this change our leadership? Our print, imprints, or impressions are the lasting effects of our attitudes and behaviors. We leave these impressions whether we are aware of this fact or not—the prints are still there.Are we leaving those we “touch” with feelings of encouragement, empowerment, or love? Or, are we impressing people with negativity, helplessness, or fear? At what point in time do we consciously design our leadership impression? Is it when we have 200 people to lead? Is it when we are preparing for retirement? Or, is it now, with our own life, leading ourselves? I love the old proverb, “The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.”Consciously creating our imprints and impressions increases our leadership influence and effectiveness. In fact, I had a trip to New York City with four days of meeting with over 70 media representatives including television producers, writers, agents, and editors. I gave 2-minute pitches to all of these people, which felt like speed-dating! This got me thinking about the impression we make in 2 minutes, and how we could possibly influence someone to take action. This is not a whole lot different than leadership. What sort of impression do we make with our leadership influence in 2 minutes? What kind of impression do we want to make? What is the lasting or lingering thought we wish to impart on someone?Follow these simple IMAGE steps to create a lasting, positive impression:Integrity – Stand in your integrity, be honest about who you are and what you stand for, demonstrating this with your behavior.Mannerisms – Be cognizant of your body language. Are you open or closed? Are you inviting? Are you demonstrating confidence?Appearance – Does your appearance match the impression and image you want to portray? Show up in presence as well, remembering to practice active listening more than speaking.Greeting – Greet others with openness, kindness, warmth, and a smile. People do not always remember what we say to them, but they always remember how they felt when with us.Enjoy the experience. We are more attracted to fun and joy than anything else.I would love to hear from you. What is the impression and image you wish to impart? What immediate step can you take today to reinforce or refine this image?
Forgiveness IS Freedom
I have to share this quote with you by Robert Muller, “To forgive is the highest, most beautiful form of love. In return, you will receive untold peace and happiness.”
Forgiveness is a challenging concept for many leaders. While we understand the idea and we know forgiveness when it happens, the vagueness surrounding forgiveness is illusive. The ambiguity enfolding forgiveness stems from our questions of how to bring about forgiveness/understanding, and from where it actually originated.
How did we even get here—the need or desire to forgive?
We look to practice forgiveness when we are angry, wronged, or hurt. Oftentimes we hold on to anger as a form of power. We feel in control and ultimately powerful when we hold onto our anger, justified in our feelings and hoping that the person we believe hurt us may feel guilty or remorseful for what we perceive they have done to us.
Avoiding forgiveness allows us to fuel our anger, feeling justified and entitled in our anger or pain as victims. Avoiding forgiveness is avoiding responsibility. We are victims because we believe we have no power. Playing the victim role deepens the feelings of pain and anger justification.
Because forgiveness is a state of being, action is required to move into that place or that state. Like so many other lessons, avoiding forgiveness is not static. Anger leads to judgment. Judgment leads to blame, and blame leads to resentment.
Resentment is really unresolved anger and resentment hurts us, manifesting in stress-related illness, anxiety, or depression. Resentment hardens our hearts paving a path of vengeance. We can lose ourselves in judgment, condemnation, and conflict, all the while wondering why we are not happy or content.
Forgiveness is a choice. We take responsibility for our peace of mind and happiness when we choose to forgive. And forgiveness starts with ourselves. To make this choice, we experience a miracle.
The process of experiencing the miracle of forgiveness is perception shifting. The change in attitude comes to us through grace. Cultivating a practice of forgiveness first begins with self-forgiveness. Dr. Robin Casarjian describes six steps to practice self-forgiveness in her book, Forgiveness:
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Acknowledge the truth.
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Take responsibility for what you have done.
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Learn from the experience by acknowledging the deeper feelings that motivated the behaviors and thoughts for which you now feel guilty and hold yourself in judgment.
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Open your heart to yourself and compassionately listen to the fears and calls for help and acknowledgment deep within.
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Heal emotional wounds by heeding the calls in healthy, loving, and responsible ways.
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Align with your Self and affirm your fundamental innocence.
By practicing self-forgiveness, always remember to be gentle with yourself, suspending judgment, allowing and receiving miracles in this holy space. The miracle and shift in perception and attitude gives us insight about others and ourselves.
I would love to hear from you. What is the first step you are willing to commit to today to move you into self-forgiveness?
With Love,
Dr. Maria
Have You Left Your Right Brain Behind?
Ask any successful leader or business owner what one of the most critical factors is for success today, and you will hear: creativity. Now, more than ever, innovation and creativity are sought-after skills in organizations for their leaders. Old models steeped in scientific management and mechanistic thinking no longer serves our needs today. As Einstein and Susan Powter so eloquently remind us, we must and look toward new models and creative ways of leading people and doing business.
For decades, our American culture has devoted most curriculum and teaching models to developing the left-hemisphere of the brain. This is the part of the brain for logic, linear and sequential thought processes. This style of learning and development continued into colleges and universities where the mechanistic model of managing business remained a primary focus. Perhaps a nod to the “soft skills” of leadership appeared in the curriculum, but not until quite recently are we actually teaching leadership skills to future leaders.
Many organizations now focus on teaching the soft skills in their leadership development programs because they realized a profound need for their leaders to have these skill sets. The soft skills to which I am referring are connecting with people, motivating teams, inspiring followers, creative thinking, innovation, quick decision-making and big-picture vision. Each one of these skill sets requires right-brain thinking.
The right hemisphere controls the left side of the body, is simultaneous, specializes in context, and synthesizes the big picture. Clearly, the ability to think quickly in today’s fast-paced world requires right hemisphere functions.
I am not advocating tossing aside the value of the left-brain—our entire brain is a gift. I am simply seeking to focus on development of our right-brain functions. At this point, most of us have fairly well developed left hemispheres. After all, we have spent most of our lifetime educated and trained to use our left-brains. What we now need as leaders is to develop and reconnect with the processes of our right brains.
Lateral thinking is perception thinking, looking for creative and innovative ways of viewing the world. This process is not constricted by boundaries and limited beliefs; it challenges us to move into expansiveness, unlimited possibilities, and abundance thinking.
Are you ready for the shift?
I would love to hear from you. What activities do you do that develops your right brain thinking? How do you get your creative on?
With Love,Maria
Connect with Laughter and Love
Early on in my corporate career, colleagues advised me to learn golf, which they claimed as a great way to network, bond with clients, and create deals. I learned the sport, but I did not enjoy the game as much as other people did.At one of our corporate retreats, my boss and colleagues could not wait to get out on the course with some of the top executive staff. I was a bit confused by this because I knew my boss didn’t really like or get along with this group of people. I asked him about it and he said that on the golf course, unless you are a pro, there is no pretense; all are on equal footing and all are hitting poorly. The golf experience allowed them to bring down their guards and share the misery of their poor shots. Like golf, laughter allows us to connect with one another, letting our guards down…without the misery of poor golf shots.Laughter enhances communication by letting our shields down and showing that we are human. The model of professionalism for too long has instructed us to be super-human. We have also learned to check our emotions at the door. We are still human; we still have emotions. To deny that fact is insanity. This is certainly a healthy approach to emotions, which is very different from the professional corporate model we learned.Here are seven strategies for infusing laughter and lightness in your leadership and life:
- Start developing your practice of laughter with consciously smiling today. See how many people you can touch and shift their energy with your smile.
- Begin your meetings on a light note. I have the E*Trade babies’ videos on my favorites list and would start meetings with one or two of those commercials. The more I watch them, the funnier they are to me.
- Watch a funny movie, making note of the elements that tickle your funny bone.
- Listen to a comedy recording on the way to work, setting the tone for the day.
- Laugh for 3–5 minutes every day. Faith it ‘til you make it!
- Commit to do one silly thing a day to cultivate your playfulness.
- Start collecting stories from work that are funny; invite everyone to participate and present these stories at the annual holiday party.
I would love to hear from you. What do you do to infuse laughter into your life?With Love,Maria
A State of Grace
Why would grace be a lesson on leadership? How can it not? Grace is the state many wise leaders seek: grace under fire. The state of grace, however, is not just essential under fire; grace serves leaders all of the time. During times of stress, confusion, joy, and peace, grace is always at its best. Many leadership books talk about policies, procedures, and processes. The extreme challenge in today’s organizations is that we value policies and procedures more than we value and honor people. Grace is a word and concept ripe with different mental models for people. Most definitions and constructs have common elements such as beauty, elegance, dignified manner, generosity of spirit, and a gift from God. The ability to see beauty in anything is a gift of grace. Mother Teresa saw beauty in the poorest of the poor, when she said, “Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.”Grace is elegance personified. Many of my female executive clients work with me to reclaim their femininity in their high-level leadership positions. Through the process of reconnecting with their feminine energy, they discover elegance and grace. Elegance is a calm, quiet knowledge of self-efficacy that you can handle anything that comes your way with dignity. Grace through elegance is a powerful leadership example. Remember the 3 Cs as outward manifestations of inward grace:care, compassion, and confidence. Confidence is one of the elements that draw followers to great leaders. But remember: confidence is not arrogance. Care and compassion are grace manifested in outward behaviors toward others, demonstrated through acts of sincere kindness to each other. I would love to hear from you. What are some of the ways you demonstrate grace in your leadership and in your life? With Love,Maria
What is the Definition of Leadership & How to be an Effective Leader
So often, I am asked these simple, yet profound questions: What is leadership? How can I be an effective leader?In my experience, the words leadership and management are used interchangeably in the workplace. In the management and leadership classes I’ve taught over the years, we define them differently, however, recognizing that leadership is a critical part of management. I’ve always believed that defining leadership as a component of management was like saying cocoa is a component of chocolate.Many organizations use the term leader when defining certain management positions. However, a title does not make a leader. My Grandpa Jaime used to say, “You can put a suit on a bum, but he is still a bum.” One may put the title of leader on a person, and he or she may or may not be a leader.Most definitions of leadership have one over-arching similarity: vision. Creating vision and motivating followers towards the vision is the fundamental foundation of leadership. If there is no place to lead (vision) and no one to follow, then leadership is absent. I define leadership as the action of inspiring and motivating others toward a vision. I don’t believe it needs to be any more complicated than that.In this episode, I share with you 15 essential factors of being an effective leader.
I would love to hear from you. What do you think? How do you define leadership? What are the qualities you admire in leaders?With love,Maria
Move Out of Your Comfort Zone When Leadership is Needed
How do you know when leadership is needed? Why is it necessary to move out of your comfort zone?
As a leadership coach, I am always excited when a powerful question or statement crosses my path or better yet, slams me in the face! The other day, I had such an encounter. Seth Godin got my attention when he wrote, “If you’re not uncomfortable in your work as a leader, it’s almost certain you’re not reaching your potential as a leader”. He was talking about the discomfort we sometimes feel as a leader and furthermore, when we identify the discomfort, we’ve found a place where leadership is needed. His list includes:
- Standing up in front of strangers
- Proposing an idea that may fail
- Challenging the status quo
- Resisting the urge to settle
I DO love those moments that move me out of my comfort zone and into what I call a “seat squirming” state. I know when I start squirming, I am on to something, and that something is usually growth!In this episode, I share a positive perspective on Seth Godin’s list for when leadership is needed.I would love to hear from you. What do you think? What is outside of your comfort zone that is holding you back? When was a time you moved outside of your comfort zone and how did you do it? How did it feel on the other side?With love,Maria
May I Present
How can we have a strong presence and make a good impression? Do we show up in the way we want?Presence is showing up.So often, we are replaying in our head the argument we may have had with a spouse, the traffic on the way to work, or the memo we just read. How different would it be if we really showed up—mind, body, and spirit? How would our showing up affect our communication, our connection and relationships, or our leadership?Great leaders, who communicate and connect, fill their minds with the person in front of them. We feel this connection when others are fully engaged in what we are saying. We see it in their eyes, we feel it energetically, we know we are connected and drawn to that person and the moment. Presence is mindfulness. Mindfulness is found in the present, and when you are present, you show up.We can practice three simple exercises to show up in the way we want.As always, I would love to hear from you. What practices do you do to show up? How would you like to show up differently, and what will you do to accomplish a stronger presence?With love,Maria
Are You a Square?
Why is it so hard to get along with different personality types? How can I get along my co-workers and their understand their personalities?
I’ve asked myself these same questions over the years and discovered that understanding different personalities can be as simple as determining their shape. Circles, Squares, Triangles, and Squiggles are a quick, easy, and effective way to understand personality types and leverage those strengths for the benefit of your team.I would love to hear from you. What shape do you identify with the most and what shape value do you bring to the table? What is the most challenging shape to work with and how have you learned to leverage those unique qualities of each personality type?With love,Maria
How to Work Through a Communication Breakdown and Communicate Better
How many times a day do we experience a communication breakdown and want to communicate better?
We’ve been talking about communication for decades and we still can’t seem to get it right!The challenge we have with communication is the noise.Three super simple strategies can help us eliminate that noise.I love to hear from you! Please share below your funniest Mars/Venus communication exchange. Or what’s the most challenging conversation you’ve had and how did you manage through it?With love,Maria
Secrets and Challenges
The secrets of leadership include awareness, mindfulness, intuition, power listening, and perception shifting. These five skills are innate, although they become buried for many of us based on our cultural upbringing. The great news is that they never go away! Reconnecting with and developing these five leadership essentials are key to successful leadership. These skills help leaders know themselves better, enabling them to understand and influence others. Let’s face it: leadership is about influence. We cannot influence others in an authentic and effective manner without first understanding ourselves as well as those whom we lead.The challenges that leaders face take on many forms. When we peel back the layers of challenges or problems, we find that in most cases the same root cause affects everything – fear. Manifesting itself in many forms, fear shows up as ego, micro-management, misunderstandings, and reactionary behaviors. When we learn to recognize the underlying cause (fear), we then will know how to rectify the real problem instead of just putting on a band-aid or superficial fix. When we only treat the problems superficially, we experience the same issues repeatedly.What is your biggest challenge with leadership and what secret solution do you have? As always, I love hearing your insight.With love,MariaDr. Maria Church, CPC, is a leadership coach, speaker, and author of Love-Based Leadership: Transform Your Life with Meaning and Abundance and her upcoming book, A Course in Leadership: 21 Spiritual Lessons on Leadership, Love, and Life. Maria holds a doctorate of management in organizational leadership, teaches at several universities, and is CEO of Dr. Maria Church International LLC, a leadership coaching, development, and training firm. For more information, visit www.DrMariaChurch.com.
Help Wanted: Team Conflict Manager
Dealing with team conflicts can be a full time job for many leaders and managers. Sometimes we spend more time focusing on our differences than we do our similarities.
I am not advocating that we all need to be alike, because then we would fall prey to groupthink and find ourselves stuck. If we look at the individual unique qualities of our teams, and understand how to leverage those individual strengths, our teams would be strong, innovative, and productive.We can also take some simple steps to avoid conflict with mindful and intentional strategies. Here are six steps to avoid workplace conflict and build teamwork:
- Ensure that areas of responsibility are clearly understood
- Eliminate conflicts of interest among team members
- Goals and objectives should be clearly explained and understood
- Let people know the importance of their contribution to the team effort
- Assign jobs that are appropriate to each team member
- Create conditions that help people motivate themselves for their reasons, not yours
Remember that we cannot do our work alone. Teams and collaboration are what gets things done.What are some strategies you employ to move your team from conflict to collaboration?With love,MariaDr. Maria Church, CPC, is a leadership coach, speaker, and author of Love-Based Leadership: Transform Your Life with Meaning and Abundance and her upcoming book, A Course in Leadership: 21 Spiritual Lessons on Leadership, Love, and Life. Maria holds a doctorate of management in organizational leadership, teaches at several universities, and is CEO of Dr. Maria Church International LLC, a leadership coaching, development, and training firm. For more information, visit www.DrMariaChurch.com.
WIIFM?
What’s in it for me? As an entrepreneur and leader of my own business, I often take this perspective of my clients when I write marketing copy and have client conversations. Framing thoughts this way helps me identify the benefits for clients and potential customers.
The funny thing about this thought, WIIFM is that it is not only on the minds of our customers, it is also on the minds of our team members and those we lead. While they may not directly ask, “What’s in it for me?” they are definitely thinking it!
If we can frame our leadership guidance and requests with the mindset of what’s in it for them, we can open up new ways to motivate our teams, clients and customers for more engagement, commitment, productivity, and loyalty; resulting in tremendous benefit to our companies and organizations.
Don’t wait for our teams and customers to fill in the blanks of what’s in it for them, just communicate to them up front the benefits and results they can expect from joining you or buying your product or service.
Don’t you just love win-win scenarios?
With love,
Maria
Dr. Maria Church, CPC, is a leadership coach, speaker, and author of Love-Based Leadership: Transform Your Life with Meaning and Abundance and her upcoming book, A Course in Leadership: 21 Spiritual Lessons on Leadership, Love, and Life. Maria holds a doctorate of management in organizational leadership, teaches at several universities, and is CEO of Dr. Maria Church International LLC, a leadership coaching, development, and training firm. For more information, visit www.DrMariaChurch.com.
Leading with Fear Works!
Many of us learned how to lead with fear…and it works…sort of. Leading with fear comes with a price.Using fear as a motivation technique is sometimes effective, but the key to understanding the use of fear is that this method is not sustainable. When leaders and managers leverage fear in the workplace, it is important for them to understand that while it may move people immediately in the direction in which they want to go, it also immediately erodes trust.Know that when employees are motivated and moved by fear, employee movement continues both literally and figuratively. Employees start planning their escape. Literally, they escape by leaving the organization. Oops, there goes another one. We know the expense of employee turnover.Even more significant are the employees who escape figuratively…read “employee disengagement”. Employees disengage when they distrust. When people check out, they are not motivated, productive, or loyal. Think of the cost to your organization with a team who has checked out.Fear is not sustaining; in fact, fear is debilitating to an organization.We need to recognize that fear is the go-to method for many leaders and managers -- we learned it, cultivated it, and thought we perfected it. I challenge you to reconsider this technique due to the long-term destructive ramifications. Get your creative juices flowing for more innovative, value-centered, and love-based approaches to influence others.What are more effective techniques you use to motivate your team? Please share your comments below.As always, I love hearing your ideas.With love,MariaDr. Maria Church, CPC, is a leadership coach, speaker, and author of Love-Based Leadership: Transform Your Life with Meaning and Abundance and her upcoming book, A Course in Leadership: 21 Spiritual Lessons on Leadership, Love, and Life. Maria holds a doctorate of management in organizational leadership, teaches at several universities, and is CEO of Dr. Maria Church International LLC, a leadership coaching, development, and training firm. For more information, visit www.DrMariaChurch.com.
Lead Without Being Bossy
I often come across leaders who want to be strong leaders but don’t want to be bossy. Many of the leadership models and examples they’ve experienced are aggressive, pushy, and downright nasty…and they don’t want to be like that!Yet, this same group of people doesn’t want to be “weak” or considered pushovers. They don’t see strong leaders being taken advantage of, not listened to, or not respected.Well the great news is that you don’t need to lead at either end to be a great leader.Strong, powerful leaders all have something in common and it doesn’t hurt or require you to do something super-human.Follow these seven practices and you’ll be leading without being bossy in no time:
- Ask questions before you talk. Find out what your team needs.
- Listen, really listen to their responses.
- Get dirty. Don’t ask your team to do anything that you would not do.
- Walk the talk. Maintain your integrity and do what you say you are going to do.
- Take responsibility for yourself and your team. When you honor them, they will honor you.
- Care about your people, individually and collectively. Remember that actions speak louder than words.
- Don’t rely on unspoken expectation. Be very clear what is expected of your team and of you.
- Invite people to participate rather than telling. Rarely, if ever, will your team decline the “invitation”. If you are following these principles, your team will not only accept the invitation, they will probably follow you wherever you go!
What else would you add to this list of being a great leader without being bossy? As always, I love hearing from you.With love,MariaDr. Maria Church, CPC, is a leadership coach, speaker, and author of Love-Based Leadership: Transform Your Life with Meaning and Abundance and her upcoming book, A Course in Leadership: 21 Spiritual Lessons on Leadership, Love, and Life. Maria holds a doctorate of management in organizational leadership, teaches at several universities, and is CEO of Dr. Maria Church International LLC, a leadership coaching, development, and training firm. For more information, visit www.DrMariaChurch.com.
Accountability is SIMPLE
As leaders, seizing opportunities to develop our team is a smart leadership practice. One of the best ways to develop our people is to hold them accountable.
Somehow we’ve managed to complicate the idea of holding people accountable, and it is quite simple. My friend Dr. Dorothy Bonvillain and I created an acronym to help you remember how simple delegating can be, with the acronym, SIMPLE:
S = Set clear expectations – this is the number one complaint and stressors from employees – that the expectations are vague.
I = Invite commitment – some say gain “buy in” but I much prefer to invite commitment. With an invitation, there is a shared sense of ownership.
M = Measure progress – Super important to keep up on this. How you will measure is part of the description of setting clear expectations.
P = Provide feedback – again, super important. Far too often managers will wait until the project is finished to say that it isn’t done correctly.
L = Link to consequences – consequences are also identified in the setting clear expectations stage.
E = Evaluate effectiveness – Do this together and it becomes a powerful activity for you and the person who is accountable.
What are some techniques you use to hold people accountable and why do you think the strategies are effective?
As always, I love sharing your insight.
With love,
Maria
Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.
LoveFest 2013
I am so excited to share with my latest project with you – LoveFest 2013!
Along with Laura Wilson, CPC, (Love Coach Laura), we are honoring 11 other people who integrate love into their work in BIG ways!
This FREE virtual event, LoveFest 2013, next week, September 16 – 19 demonstrates the exciting transformational shift from fear and competition modalities toward love and collaboration with heart-based methods.
Our speakers represent thirteen major areas of life (politics, leadership, business, money, health, sports, community, relationships, self, intention, networking, social media, sales, and education) experiencing the profound benefits of shifting to a love-based approach.
You will hear from money and business expert, Maria Simone, sales expert Carolyn Coradeschi, social media and marketing coach, Tassey Russo, the go to business coach for healers, Karen Monteverdi, bullying prevention expert, Vicki Abadesco, and several other experts bringing love to work in corporate America, communities, schools, business, health/wellness, weight loss, making money, sports, arts, and of course, relationships.
Not only will you hear 13 of us talk about this shift from fear to love, but you will hear about the incredible results that we and our clients are experiencing from this shift!
I sure do hope you will join us at our FREE virtual event, LoveFest 2013. Just click here to register!
Don’t miss Jone Bosworth, J.D.’s interview, “Unchain the Heart of Democracy”, or Sandy Zeldes’s interview, “Love: Your Weight-Loss Solution” and so much more!
Join us today!
Register at http://www.LoveFest2013.com
“See you” at the Fest!
With love,
Maria
Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.
Your Way Out of Conflict
Like presence, when we fully connect with those with whom we are communicating, when we find common ground, we come together. Our ability to find common ground is easy when you combine presence, power listening, and perception shifting, with intuition.
Discover shared values, shared objectives, shared goals, and/or a shared vision. You are now on your way to discovering the true issue of the conflict. This clarity creates a shifted environment to now empathize with this person, which will move you into a collaborative vibe.
Once you’ve determined the true issue, now together, you can create a shared vision of collaboration…a plan to move forward. Remember as you create your plan of collaboration, apply the four actions of presence, power listening, perception shifting, and intuition, while always staying focused on common ground.
When you create your plan of collaboratively moving forward, remember to include follow-up, keeping the lines of communication open, demonstrating your commitment to improvement, and always be gracious—thanking the person for bringing this issue to your attention. Shoot for always ending the conversation on a positive note.
With love,
Maria
Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.
Great Leaders are Full
Great leaders, who communicate and connect, fill their minds with the person in front of them. We feel this connection when others are fully engaged in what we are saying. We see it in their eyes, we feel it energetically, we know we are connected and drawn to that person and the moment. Presence is mindfulness. Mindfulness is found in the present, and when you are present, you show up.
When we find this connection with others through mindfulness, we gain a deeper understanding of each other and of ourselves. Of course when we do, we are mind-full of their presence in the moment. We also understand ourselves better when we connect with others. It is not unusual with this deep union of souls, to see ourselves in those people with whom we feel connected. In a mindful state, empathy, connection, compassion, and equality surface to our consciousness. We see and feel each other as the same, without division and without judgment—we feel love.
Not only is a mindful practice one that provides clarity, vision, connection, and beauty, but being present in the moment also confers peace of mind. Living in mindfulness is living in peace. This is especially relevant in our current culture plagued with chaos, competition, rage, and fear.
How do you know when you've really been heard?
With love and attention,
Maria
Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.
The Beauty of Complaints
So often, when we hear the word, complain, those of us who have worked in customer service bristle! However, complaints are not always a bad thing – sometimes complaints can be quite valuable. When we shift our perceptions from negativity to a positive frame, we may actually welcome complaints…well, sometimes!
Complaints can be beneficial because:
- Complaints can give you information you may not otherwise have. Sometimes we can’t see the forest through the trees, in other words, we may be too close to the situation to see problems or issues.
- When we receive complaints, we receive information. Let’s face it; often times some information is better than no information. When people take the time out to complain, that means at some level they care! If they were complacent or indifferent about you or your organization, they would say nothing.
- If the complaint doesn’t come to you, it doesn’t mean the complaint is not being shared with someone else…perhaps shared with someone else with whom they are now doing business!
- The complaint gives you an opportunity to correct the situation. Contrary to popular belief, ignorance is not bliss.
Think about this: When people do share a complaint with you, they are actually saying:
- I value this relationship.
- I hope to continue this relationship.
- I am presenting this problem to you because I care.
- I know you can fix this.
What are you thoughts about complaints?
With love,
Maria
Content copyright 2012. Dr. Maria J. Church. All rights reserved.