Would you be outraged?

You are experiencing the worst economic times in recent history. You have just invested in a complete online employee survey program. The results have been painstakingly analyzed and reviewed, and you have a plan for action. The entire team is scheduled for a nearly unprecedented early morning meeting to give the consulting team ample opportunity to address the issues identified through the survey process. And your entire staff shows up ………………in pajamas.

Would you be?
a) Outraged
b) Upset
c) Concerned
d) Confused
e) Stupefied
f) Elated

If you were Bill Ferrence, Manager of the Boulder Dam Credit Union, the words tickled, delighted, overjoyed, humbled and grateful would never be enough to describe the significance of this gesture. This was not a sign of protest, but one of solidarity to the core principles that make BDCU a special place to be part of for absolutely everyone - Whether you are a member of the staff, the Roto-Rooter man, who would not take a fee for cleaning the drains before a Saturday company picnic, or the member who waits patiently at the door to see a friendly face and, while he is there, conduct some kind of financial transaction.

In case you have not guessed, this is not your average Credit Union. It looks like many others - tellers, vaults, loan officers, and unfortunately a couple of repossessed RV’s outside - but that is where the similarities end. I am lucky; I know the stories, I know that the PJ’s and curlers were a re-enactment of an audacious morning meeting many years ago. Bill had arrived for an uncharacteristically early morning meeting in his three-piece brown corduroy suit greeted by wide grins smeared in cold cream, framed in curlers, and bedecked in vibrant flannel. This was impertinence at its best, but not to Bill, his position, the members or the challenges before them; but rather irreverence to fear.

The BDCU currency of choice is not one of dollars and cents, but one of love and respect. Ask the young woman who lost her mother and, without resources, was unable to pay for the funeral. In just three hours, the staff donated the anticipated funeral expenses of $900. However, this is not the end of the story. When you give abundantly, you receive abundantly. Recognizing the generosity of the BDCU staff, the Boulder City Family Mortuary donated their services, and more than $500 remained to help the daughter provide for urgent needs.

For those of you cynical enough to be searching for the bottom line consider just three facts:

1. The BDCU has virtually ZERO turnover. New team members come as a result of those that have retired or left the community. 70% of BDCU employees have been with the credit union more than ten years, and 30% more than twenty.

2. 82% of employees rate the credit union either a 4 or 5 as a fun place to work, (5 being “it is so much fun I would pay THEM to work here!”). Compare that to the average work environment where only 20% are enthusiastic, 54% are disengaged, and another 17% are actually working against the system.

3. BDCU has more than 22,000 members in a closed membership community of just 15,000, which means more than a third of their members have kept their membership even though they have left the community.

Seven lessons to put the power of BDCU to work for you: These are not things to add to and check off your “to do” list. We already “do” too much and understand too little. Dis-ease is not a call for action, but for understanding. Once we understand our “why” we will each find our own unique “how”.

1. We each operate everyday out of a mindset of scarcity or abundance, fear or love. Whatever you extend to the world will be returned to you. Give that which you wish to receive.

2. Become aware of the stories going on inside your head. Notice whether they give you pleasure or pain, and realize you are the author. If you don’t like the story, turn the page and begin again.

3. Do not write yourself into others’ dramas. Each of us is the star, playwright and director of our own personal plays. All of the other characters are merely projections of the main character. When someone attacks or belittles you, realize they are only attacking themselves. Leave their play on their stage; go, and enjoy some popcorn.

4. We are not thinking beings that have feelings; we are feeling beings that have thoughts. Whether you are leading a business, volunteer group, family or just yourself, “priming” good feelings is your most important role.

5. Cultivate an irreverence to fear. We live in a culture fascinated with failure and dominated by drama. Choose to believe that all things are possible and that will be true for you.

6. Don’t waste time TRYING to be positive. You are, under all the dysfunction, at your core, an eternal optimist. Observe a child learning to walk or a youngster with their first bike. This is who you are beneath the unconsciousness. Change does not require effort, but awareness.

7. Efforts to resist negativity only create more discontent. Instead, become conscious of your choices. Don’t judge, blame or criticize; simply observe how you feel and notice how you think. We feel the way we feel because we think the way we think


Randy

P.s. It may now not surprise you to know that the girl in the story above is still wearing the class ring purchased for her by the BDCU staff when her family could not afford to buy one.

At 7:47 p.m. on October 11, 2009, our company became the official meeting planners for the California Resource Recovery Association - CRRA. At least that is when we received the call from Bob Gedert, Executive Director. The fact that he called us after a long meeting day, on a Sunday night, was one of many signs of what a perfect fit we are for each other. When we first began looking for a team to be part of we didn’t know about Bob’s easy laughter, childlike exuberance, or how perfectly the goals of CRRA matched our own. We only knew that we wanted to find an organization that was equally passionate about their mission as we have been about ours.

For fifteen years I have been the red high-topped “maniac with a mission” fanning the flames of organizational and personal passion. Throughout this journey I have often struggled with the boundaries of my messages. Where do you separate sales from service, leadership from personal mastery, humor from content? The fact is, everything is part of the same interdependent system. CRRA understands this continuity and is committed to promoting sustainability in the same way we are dedicated to creating organizations designed for sustaining high energy human performance. Polluting the human spirit is no different than polluting oceans and streams. Waste in the physical world and human spirit are inextricably interconnected.

Organizations that treat employees as disposable find themselves buried in landfills of discontent, while those that respect their stewardship of all resources enjoy enduring bounty. Everything and everyone we touch is part of a perpetual cycle about which we have a choice. Whatever we extend to the world will return to us. If we see separation we will find scarcity. If we see connection we will experience abundance.

Consider the abundance mentality of Wal-Mart, the largest employer the world has ever seen. Their Personal Sustainability Project has allowed half a million people to improve their health, the environment, and their company’s competitive performance. Wal-Mart recently announced their next big project, to create a universal rating system that scores products on how environmentally and socially sustainable they are. Many of us read labels to protect our health, imagine if we did the same thing to protect our environment.

Now let’s bring this idea full circle from a leadership perspective. If we consider the people in your “circle of influence” as your environment, how environmentally and socially sustainable are you as an employer or employee? How about family member or community member? What would your label read? Are you part of the solution or part of the problem? Do you give back or do you take away, do you build up, or do you tear down? This is not an exercise in judgment. Judging yourself or others is one of the most non-sustainable things we can do. Judging ALWAYS pollutes the polluter and the polluted alike because we are all connected.

We are thrilled to be part of the CRRA team and know that through “composting of ideas” and increasing awareness we can create both a more sustainable and enjoyable world for everyone.

Power Vs. Force

Most Nonprofit and Not-for-profits are struggling both with the economy and with a maturing membership; issues of relevance are becoming more of a challenge. Empty nest Boomers with time to reflect and Gen-Ys coming of age are more interested in why and a little less in how. Combining this with our current economic challenges, we have a biologic predisposition to revert to a more primitive focus of attention based on fear and scarcity. Unfortunately “That which we expect we get”. Instead of preventing that which we wish to avoid, we attract what we place our attention on.

These “Attractive Powers” have been measured and quantified through the use of behavioral kinesiology as described in books like Power Vs. Force by Dr. David Hawkins M.D., Ph.D. Powers are universal and energizing, while the use of Force always creates its own resistance and is a negative drain on ourselves, our organizations and the world as a whole. Envy, blame, guilt and worry are just a few emotions that fall under the self defeating category of Force. These are also the habitual tendencies of individuals and organizations under pressure. Our challenge is then one of cause and effect. Is worrying simply the reasonable response to real problems, or is it in fact the very energy that attracts exactly that which we are trying to avoid. To answer that question all you have to do is ask your body. Do you perform better on a test, sales call, an interview or service situation when you are worried about the outcome? Force is always antithetical to the outcome.

Unfortunately for average organizations in times of stress it is often easiest to comfort themselves with the ineffectual attention to behaviors believing that decisive action is the best remedy. Action is necessary, but it is not one of doing, but one of understanding. Once we “know why” the “know how” is easy. Anyone who has experiences a life threatening illness understands this perfectly. What seemed so confusing or difficult before the diagnoses is now perfectly clear. The challenge is creating that same epiphany without the life threatening event. The truth is every act of Force is a life-threatening event that saps the things that make life worth living. The characteristics of Power; joy, peace, contentment, courage and appreciation are not the result of external events, but universal understanding. They are both the cause and the effect attracting like unto like. We all know this, because we have all experienced it. We have all done the unimaginable, simply because we imagined it. Our challenge is to help people remember. My friend John Scherer uses this phrase in his new book Five Questions that Change Everything, “We don’t change ourselves, we become ourselves, and that changes everything.”

Humor and story unlock the door, science inserts the key and remembering helps us rediscover the best that is in each of us.

PROLIFERATING PANDEMIC

We are hearing about the impending epidemic of the H1N1 virus, but could the far more important pandemic be the spread of discontent that is infecting a majority of the people on our planet. Maybe discontent just needs a catchy title or more scientific name to bring our attention to its destructive powers. What if the news read the D1C1T1 VIRUS HAS REACHED CATASTROPHIC PORPORTIONS? “Families are being destroyed, communities decimated, businesses crumble and countries stumble.” In a very real sense this is true, but it won’t be on any headline, talk show or magazine cover because it is never in their interest for you to be content. Contented people don’t need. They don’t need new cars, houses or clothes. They don’t need a different past, better spouse or more secure future. They don’t have to keep up, they are up. You may say that I am in need of medication and that you are just as content, satisfied, peaceful as “the other guy” and of course just look at the news- you are far better than most. But just ask yourself as you watch most any three year old. Which of you is more creative, enthusiastic, resilient, optimistic, energetic, accepting, loving? This is who we are at our core. Before you were taught to see scarcity you were surrounded with abundance. The problem is not with who we are, but who we are not. The first step in regaining the best that is in us is becoming aware of the “unconsciousness” that dominates us. Learn to pay attention to how you feel. Don’t look at what you are thinking, but simply how you are thinking. Do your thoughts give you peace? Who put them there? Do you believe your discontent will make you more or less effective? If you believe it is better to be discouraged than encouraged why not try it on a child? This is just the beginning. In the next series of articles we will gradually rediscover the best and discard the rest. Subscribe to this feed to learn the second misunderstanding of thought: Do thoughts push or pull?

THE POWER OF THOUGHTS

Most of us misunderstand the power of our thoughts. . First we believe they are just simply ideas in our heads. Nothing could be further from the truth. Thoughts are energy, resonance or vibrations that are reflected in every cell of our bodies; and the stronger the emotions the greater their disruption. Thoughts of fear (which include every discomforting thought we have) resonate throughout our bodies creating “scarred” clotting factors increasing our chances of strokes or heart attacks and impairing T-Cells reducing our ability to fight cancers. Everything from the membranes that protect our stomach’s acids from eating itself to our ability to think creatively is inhibited by every thought of discontent. This impact does not end at the boundaries of our skin. We have all been with people whose mere presence lifts us up and others who make our skin crawl. I have never seen a study to confirm this but I wonder. I recently listened to Deepak Chopra, one of my favorite authors, who said that every time we exhale we release 10 to the 22nd power atoms from our body. Atoms that were part of our lungs, heart, liver, and blood are shared with those around us through the simple act of breathing. If we breathe in the unhappiness from another, does it become part of us?

THE PULL OF THE PAST

Even when there are no “others” to justify our discontent we can always look to our past. Who of us has not earned a little regret or deserves just a bit of remorse. We actually find guilt comforting; it is a familiar place where we can justify our goodness by feeling bad about our badness. If we were not to condemn our past behavior, wouldn’t we by default be that the kind of person who would do such a thing? The fact was at that time we were just exactly “that” person and at “that” time it was the best we could do. “We are not our actions; we are those who act and we act on our best awareness at that time.” There is nothing we have ever done or will ever do that can change the past, whether it was five minutes or fifty years ago. More importantly, whatever you did or didn’t do, whatever did or did not happen, was intended to teach you a lesson about yourself. These lessons are never to expose your weakness, but to reveal your greatness. Without failure how could we know that we could do better? Without doing better how could we be reminded we are better? I use the word “reminded” because this is not something new but only something you have forgotten. You are miraculous. You won the greatest lottery with your odds of conception and defied them further learning to walk, talk, ride a bike and a million other seemingly insurmountable tasks. But often having faced something as inconsequential as the morning traffic we choose to forget our gifts and favor our gripes with attention they do not deserve.

The Eye of the Storm

Amidst the backdrop of post-hurricane Katrina, I met with the members of the National Eligibility Workers Association recently in New Orleans. Besieged by budget shortfalls and increasing demands, this was a perfect setting to remind us of the storms we all experience. Storms may be personal or professional, serious or seemingly incidental. The reality of our storms is that we willingly (if not consciously) enter into them. We of course are absolutely certain these storms are generated by outside sources, bad bosses, unappreciative employees, demanding spouses, defiant teenagers, attacks on our health, position, esteem or even texting drivers. The list is endless and no matter what we do we are all exposed to the “elements”. The advantage we have over those who could not escape the fury of hurricane Katrina is that we can step into the calm of our own “eye of the storm” by consciously making the choice. This is a simple process, but it is certainly not an easy one. We have all been conditioned over a lifetime of training to look for the causes of our turbulence outside of ourselves. Maybe even more accurately we look the solutions outside of NOW. Follow this blog to receive the each of the new updates as they are available.