Jim: What is the most effective way to help a person move out of the “deep victim” stance into a more self-responsible way of being?

Ron: How do you get a team leader to acknowledge the concerns of the team members. Many of the questions and issues are passed over because of “time constraints”, no closure and team problems fester?

Geoff: How do we identify the 20% of people in an Organisation that will embrace ‘responsibility’ and change the environment for the other 80%

Samantha: I enjoy my work in HR, but sometimes it seems like there are so many boundries/barriers. Making choices help us to grow but can be scary as well. I want those who I support to know I can add value. I feel that team work can help in building more self confidence for hard choices. Can you speak to this?

Paula:  I have at least a couple of co-workers (peers) who communicate and energize martyrdom. I attempt to ignore this and do avoid rewarding it verbally . And, in my mind, I a am frustrated with it. Any thoughts on how to grow an environment that encourages people to ask for help and communicate issues early?

Luis:  Procrastination is one of the biggest obstacles that we have to overcome to take 100% ownership. What is your advice on fighting against it?

I appreciate you. And I appreciate your interest in how personal and shared responsibility works in the mind. People like you joined me today for a solid hour of my best information about leading, teaming, and succeeding through 100% ownership. It’s live, no-cost, and completely driven by your questions. You were there right? Or are you already enjoying the life, work, and relationships of your dreams? If not, what’s your #1 question about increasing your freedom, power, and choice — about overcoming any challenge and achieving anything?

Ask Christopher Avery Details

• Date: Every second Tuesday of the month
• Time: 6PM GST / 1PM EST / Noon CST / 11MST / 10 PST
• Register: http://www.AskChristopherAvery.com/
• How to listen: Register for dial-in instructions

Feel free to gather your team around the conference table and take advantage of this no-cost team development opportunity. Lots of teams did that today all over the world.

Rave Review

Here’s an email I received from Alissa Beeler in Tennessee after last month’s Ask Christopher Avery tele-clinic:

Dear Christopher,

I did hear your broadcast and really appreciated your response. Your answer was terrific! Yes, I took notes! And am starting my Responsibility Practice TODAY!

Thank you for your great ideas, perspectives and most of all for being willing to go over this information again and again until we “get it”. We do have the best of intentions, but being human, we tend to rationalize and find we have drifted so far away, or just plain “forgot” our intent.

You are exactly right – this needs to be a daily practice with it “in your face” and I really like the accountability of the score-keeping game. I have down-loaded the poster as you suggested on the call and am putting copies in several places to remind me. I have your book as well.

Thank you so very much for sharing yourself and your perspective. And please keep those great tips coming.

You sir, are definitely one of those people of integrity with a very valid moral compass and stand as a shining example.  Thank you!

~Alissa Beeler, Tennessee

This week’s questions

Maria:    Christopher, I very much enjoy listening to your tele-clinics, and have found them very helpful, with practical advice I can apply.  Last month I asked a question related to older children; you gave a short (v. helpful to “carry with”!) answer in the last minute, but said you may try to elaborate in the next clinic.

Belinda:  What one thing can I do be more consistent in taking personal responsibility? Paula:    What are some ways to move out of justify?

Drew:    In a professional management setting, does delegation equate to taking full responsibility?

Zachary:    How can I endow employees at all levels with a sense of personal responsibility?  I have tried conveying the importance of all tasks, how even small ones effect the whole project either negatively or positively.

Joe:    Can you get these teleclinics in mp3s?

Pam:    How do I get my team to share a vision about what our team’s responsibility is to the larger organization?

Lyz:    How can I coach my team to be responsible?

Jim:    What is the most effective way to help a person move out of the “deep victim” stance into a more self-responsible way of being?

Ron:    How do you get a team leader to acknowledge the concerns of the team members. Many of the questions and issues are passed over because of “time constraints”, no closure and team problems fester.

Geoff:    How do we identify the 20% of people in an Organisation that will embrace ‘responsibility’ and change the environment for the other 80%?

Samantha:    I enjoy my work in HR, but sometimes it seems like there are so many boundries/barriers. Making choices help us to grow but can be scary as well. I want those who I support to know I can add value. I feel that team work can help in building more self confidence for hard choices. Can you speak to this?

Register for next month’s Ask Christopher Avery right now.

And now, for Michelle’s questions:

What’s your definition of “responsibility”?

First, thanks for asking such a relevant question! You are my newest friend forever Michelle.

Owning your power and ability to create, choose and attract. Period.

Most people expect something more at the end of this definition, as in “create, choose and attract what?” The answer would be “your entire reality.”

The operative word is “Owning.” I take for granted that we are each completely creating, choosing, and attracting our reality. Mastering responsibility is the process of owning that more and more.

What’s your favorite aspect of being on Twitter?

I’m still pretty new on Twitter, but as a social media marketing experiment, I like how it connects me to all sorts of networks. The first hundred or so people I followed are in direct marketing, but now I’m discovering networks for leadership, teamwork, politics, relationships and more.

Today I heard from a friend I haven’t seen in 8 or 10 years. I tweeted about interviewing Dr. Harvey Barnett and after the interview Dolly Garlo emailed me about what an inspiring interview it was. We were following each other on Twitter and I had not realized who she was. And now she is helping me research a business question that’s been nagging me for a few weeks. Dolly has better skills than me to look into it and doing so will benefit her.

It’s a win/win/win.

What would happen during your Perfect Day, where you can do what you want, when you want, how you want? Describe it from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed.

Okay. First, let’s change that from the hypothetical “would” to “does” or “will.”

I wake up for the sunrise in a seaside resort on the outer banks of South Carolina — or the coast of France or Italy or Greece, or maybe the Baha. I meet my leadership mentoring clients for breakfast followed by 2 hours of Application Mastery Group. That’s where we help each other with my proprietary process, the Perfect Problem Breakthrough™, to become powerful leaders .

Then we mount our road bikes and cover 40-60 miles of coastline, catching lunch en route. Or maybe we hop aboard our flotilla of 12 to 15 meter sailboats and play cat & mouse to the next island.

After a refreshing swim we spend another 2 hours in Application Mastery Groups developing more leadership power and freedom, and expanding choices. Then comes cocktails, dinner, and early to my room for a call home before bed.

No wait a minute. Maybe the perfect day will begin waking up with my wife in our hill-top home in Comfort…

It’s one of those — if I have to choose.

What’s your favorite movie of all time and why?

Whichever one I’m watching with my wife Amy. I’m not a big movie guy.

Why is Comfort, Texas named Comfort? Feel free to answer figuratively or literally.

Great question. I tell audiences I live in Comfort and keep my famiy in Comfort. The cool metaphor-for-life aspect of this is that Comfort (TX) is only 9 miles from Welfare (TX). But it is 70 miles from Utopia (TX).

Comfort is an unincoporated town of mabe 2000 people (and 20,000 cows) in the Texas Hill Country west of Austin and northwest of San Atonio. It’s on Interstate 10 about 45 minutes from the San Antonio airport. We moved here as a lifestyle decision in 2001 after 20 years in Austin.

It was named by German settlers, as were all the surrounding towns — Frederiscksburg, Boerne, Kerrville — and since it was a rest stop along the trail, it was aptly named.

The Interview rules

• leave me a comment saying: “interview me”
• all comments will be published, as long as your name isn’t Mr Cameltoe (obviously, Mr Cameltoe, who commented this week, is a robot spammer)
• I will submit to you five questions of my choice
• you can then answer the questions on your blog {with a link back to my blog}
• you should also post these rules, along with an offer to interview anyone else who e-mails you wanting to be interviewed
• anyone who asks to be interviewed should be sent 5 questions to answer on their blog
• it would be nice if the questions were individualized for each blogger

I’m pleased to announce the educational DVD and workshop solution for making your business bubble over with personal responsibility is now shipping to customers worldwide.

What Can The Journey Do for You?

Finally, a breakthrough How-To system for filling your workplace with Personal Responsibility. And the best part is you Do-It-Yourself with this low-cost DVD-based workshop.

Experts universally name Personal Responsibility the first principle of success in any endeavor (and you know what a difference it makes when people you depend on at work take ownership). But no expert could tell you how to systematically understand, develop, and build personal responsibility. . .

…Until Now

Attention Leaders, Executives, Business Owners, Professionals, & Leadership Coaches:

Put this easy-to-use DVD-based workshop to work for you teaching fellow leaders, team mates, and every employee how Personal Responsibility works in the mind— the essence of leadership and success—so they can

	Take ownership		Solve problems at the source
	Engage		Be resilient
	Face reality		Lead
	Learn quicker		Get unstuck
	Respond with agility		and so much more

So you do well—while doing good—with less effort.

That’s a Win/Win/Win. Look…

• at least 5 sessions of Knowledge Team Leadership in the US and UK,
• the exciting new  Journey to Responsibility and Self-Leadership DVD-based Do-It-Yourself workshop for organizations,
• an innovative leadership development program for enlightened senior leaders I’m calling the Perfect Problem™ Breakthrough,
• a new web presence, and
• as they say — much more.

Look for more on all off these in the coming days and weeks.

I Said “Reinventing”

I’ve been confronting my value proposition as a leadership developer and organization change consultant. Without going deeply into it, I’ve decided to  personally serve only those leaders who desire to change their own consciousness. No more change-those-other-people-so-I/we-can-be-successful assignments.

That’s big, humbling, and scary (consider the self-talk: am I a fool, or worse, stupid?). Its like saying no to your boss—or family. And it does put my family’s daily bread on the line…again.

It’s not a moral issue for me (I enjoy economic prosperity, cool business models, and leadership success a great deal). It’s an ethical one. Continuing to serve the corporate-success-at-all-costs-machine won’t accomplish the Responsibility Redefined™ mission of changing the way the world thinks about personal responsibility.

And it’s no wonder this comes at a time of unprecedented conflicts, disasters, and other tumult on our planet. We see immense fear and lack of ownership everywhere we look. I don’t know about you, but I also see immense opportunity to take responsibility for the world we want around us, you and me.

Repeat: I’m Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take it Anymore!

While I generally don’t join the right/wrong debates in national and international politics and issues (taking 100 percent responsibility is about getting past blame and right/wrong, and, as Gandhi said, simply being the change you desire) I am feeling called to show up with courage and strength at this troubling time.

The Sunday NY Times article produced a few lines that seemed to crystallize my thoughts. The authors open with a poignant premise about the United States leadership in the world:

We’ve been viewed by the wider world with mistrust and suspicion on other matters, but on the subject of money even our harshest critics have been inclined to believe that we knew what we were doing. They watched our investment bankers and emulated them: for a long time now half the planet’s college graduates seemed to want nothing more out of life than a job on Wall Street.

This is one reason the collapse of our financial system has inspired not merely a national but a global crisis of confidence. Good God, the world seems to be saying, if they don’t know what they are doing with money, who does?

But the piercing statement comes in the middle of this later paragraph (bold italics are mine):

Richard Fuld, the former chief executive of Lehman Brothers, E. Stanley O’Neal, the former chief executive of Merrill Lynch, and Charles O. Prince III, Citigroup’s chief executive, may have paid themselves humongous sums of money at the end of each year, as a result of the bond market bonanza. But if any one of them had set himself up as a whistleblower — had stood up and said “this business is irresponsible and we are not going to participate in it” — he would probably have been fired. Not immediately, perhaps. But a few quarters of earnings that lagged behind those of every other Wall Street firm would invite outrage from subordinates, who would flee for other, less responsible firms, and from shareholders, who would call for his resignation. Eventually he’d be replaced by someone willing to make money from the credit bubble.

I’m in. Who’s With Me?

So I’m out to develop enlightened leaders who will say this business is irresponsible and we are not going to participate in it, not because they want to be fired, but because we seek a better and simpler way to prosperity and life success. How cool will that be when all across the land enlightened leaders start saying “no” to all sorts of irresponsible, oppressive, unsustainable, and greedy practices. If I can help support leaders in making this move, then I’m all in. I hope you are too. As if to drive home this need, the NY Times article ends with this:

Our leaders have framed the problem as a “crisis of confidence” but what they actually seem to mean is “please pay no attention to the problems we are failing to address.”

Where would these authors say “our leaders” minds are on the Responsibility Process™?

• we can accomplish anything we set our minds to,
• happiness and success are choices we can make, and
• we aren’t always in charge of what happens to us, but we are in charge of how we respond to what happens to us.

But it’s often difficult to believe them, or that what they say is true for me. And it feels harder than they make it sound (One best-selling house-hold name guru is currently marketing a program called “Effortless Success”. Believe it?). But might you believe a two-time Nobel Prize winning Harvard biologist who has spent 79 years studying the behavior of ants?

I’ll circle back to him below. First I’ll say that I believe — no, I don’t just believe, belief implies doubt; I know, I’m totally clear — that we really are more capable than we know. To say it another way, I am convinced I am more powerful and able than I usually give myself credit for.

So give credit where credit is due

How? By acknowledging your unrecognized power. How? By starting (or restarting) your Responsibility Practice today.

One of the Responsibility Redefined™ lessons I constantly remind myself (and I tell every audience and every client too since we all need to hear it over and over) is what I said above:  we are all far more powerful and able than we give ourselves credit for. That’s right. Even though we’ve been choosing, creating, and attracting our life experience and results for years, we don’t usually own that we are the architect of our own experience (good and bad). So we are the only one that can change the results we are getting.

Response Ability starts when you assume there is something you can do, even if you don’t know what it is

Our built-in Responsibility Process™ is the regulator. When we are not getting what we want, even in small ways, we Lay Blame, Justify, Shame ourselves, or operate from Obligation, none of which satisfies us in terms of delivering what we want. We remain anxious and upset, often depressed. Not only are we upset and feeling trapped in a life we don’t want, we usually assume there is nothing we can do.

But that assumption is false.

However, we become increasingly more powerful and free when we realize that every upset large or small is an opportunity to learn and start practicing that when we experience an upset of any size. Do you have  upsets in your life? Any frustrations? Anywhere when you aren’t getting exactly what you want?

Of course you do.

What if you see each as a gift, the gift of a signal that there is something for you to learn in that arena of your life in order to bring you more freedom, choice, and power? True power is the ability to learn, grow, become more aware, and release yourself from self-imposed traps and limitations.

Repeat after me “I am bigger than any problem”

One of my sons and I were driving home from the beach Sunday where my family spent Thanksgiving week as we have the last ten years, in a rented beach house on South Padre Island, the beautiful barrier island at the southern tip of Texas along the Gulf coast, only 6 nautical miles from Mexico. Driving through the Rio Grand Valley (where the famous King Ranch goes on for miles and miles) I was listening to National Public Radio’s Andrea Seabrook interviewing Edward O. Wilson, the award-winning Harvard biologist and co-author of a new book The Superorganism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies.

As a social scientist I was intrigued with his 79 year-long research into ants and ant societies. But I was rocked with his words quoted by Ms. Seabrook in her sign-off:

You are capable of more than you know. Choose a goal that seems right for you and strive to be the best, however hard the path. Aim high. Behave honorably. Prepare to be alone at times, and to endure failure. Persist! The world needs all you can give.

Now coming from a winner of over 100 awards in science, biology, and human affairs, I’ll assign some credibility to his words when he says “you are capable of more than you know.”

Check it out

Here’s a link to the interview. You’ll need to register and log in to NPR to access it.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in Lebanon, it’s because they want them in Lebanon.

by Charley Reese (probably written between 1971 and 2006)
(underscores added for emphasis)

Charley Reese doesn’t pull punches. Mr. Reese wrote for the Orlando Sentinel Star newspaper between 1971 and 2006 when he retired and began his syndicated column which ran until August 2008.

When I read this column (included below) sent in by a fan of Responsibility Redefined, I was struck by Mr. Reese’s repeated “they want it” quoted and underscored above. I teach clients all the time that what we get today is related to what we created, chose, or attracted yesterday. In other words, we really do get what we want, whether we believe it or not. And now there is ample evidence about how responsibility works in the mind to support this point of view.

I don’t mean to politicize this blog or the Responsibility Redefined message. So regardless of your political persuasion, please read and enjoy Charlie Reese’s essay. While it is making the rounds now right now, it was probably written in the 1980′s due to the reference about Marines in Lebanon. I was surprised this morning that I could not find an exact publication date. Perhaps you can pin it down. If you do, please let me know.

THE 545 PEOPLE

RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL

OF AMERICA’S WOES

By Charley Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices – 545 human beings out of the 235 million – are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.

I excluded all but the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.

No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislation’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

A CONFIDENCE CONSPIRACY

Don’t you see how the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of Tip O’Neill, who stood up and criticized Ronald Reagan for creating deficits.

The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating appropriations and taxes.

O’Neill is the speaker of the House. He is the leader of the majority party. He and his fellow Democrats, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetos it, they can pass it over his veto.

REPLACE SCOUNDRELS

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 235 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts – of incompetence and irresponsibility.

I can’t think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns, that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in Lebanon, it’s because they want them in Lebanon.

There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take it.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They and they alone have the power. They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses – provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.

This article was taken from the Orlando Sentinel Star newspaper

More on Charley Reese

Charley Reese on wikipedia

Charley Reese archives

I skipped the Toronto Agile 2008 conference this year in  August. But when the call for proposals was out back in January I heard from Portia Tung that she’d read my article on Personal Agility and wished I would present Responsibility Redefined™ in Toronto. I appreciated that since I’d presented at the 2004-2007 conferences. Alas, I told her we’d have to sync up somewhere else.

So as I’m heading into the London conference center last Wednesday to give the closing keynote for Agile Business Conference 2008, I pass a pub where my friends Ole and Jenni of Go Agile, a consulting group in Copenhagen, are hanging out with another gentleman and an oriental woman breaking out in a huge smile of recognition and waving at me. Then, an hour later, there she is again in the audience smiling and nodding and grinning at everything I said. (I do so play to such full-of-positive-feedback audience members.)

Yep, it was Portia.

Portia blogs in Challenge Your Personal Agility about that talk. An excellent writer, Portia describes my work well. Thanks Portia!

But wait there’s more

Portia sent me home with a deck of cards from her Agile Fairytales games which you can access, download, and use! How kind is that of Portia?! Read about some folks playing the game last week at the conference.

Ask me anything at www.AskChristopherAvery.com

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