Darkness cannot drive out darkness,

Only Light Can do That!

Not too long ago as the Global Director Logistics and Export / Import Optimization, I reported directly to the CECO (Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer) at a major oil and gas company. Our team (LEXIM – Logistics Export and Import Management) was tasked with transporting product across the globe legally, ethically, and most efficiently.

Studying history in this space, you will find poor choices and wrong doings of companies often resulted in hefty consequences (loss of customer trust, fines, penalties, restrictions, and even business bans). This is serious business for the shipper and transporter and can cause great harm to your customer and your company if the right choices are not made and proper procedures are not followed correctly.

Due to the significant risk, I frequently started my meetings and presentations with the following statement to make sure I had everyone’s 100% attention, focus, and commitment:

There is never a wrong time to do the right thing!

There is never a right time to do the wrong thing!

Based on my upbringing and being a lean six sigma black belt and engineer, mixed with my personal life lessons and a study of history; the above statement seems clear to me.

But what I am seeing today across our nation and the globe is that people vary greatly on what they believe is right and what they believe is wrong.

 What is right and what is wrong? It can be simply broken down as follows:

What is missing from the above is the lens that someone is looking through that contains their specific viewpoint and often emotion. 

With a clear mind, being wise and insightful, hopeful and optimistic, right and wrong are easy choices. When we get emotional, impatient, frustrated, irritated, defensive, insecure, judgmental, and angry, the clarity between right and wrong becomes cloudy. We are not our best selves and not able to make worthy choices. This leads to harm for us and others.

How we do we ensure clarity in decision making and even before we speak? In last weeks’ blog (below), I shared how to stop a downward spiral with a simple tool called the mood elevator. It highlights to us when we are being negative and give us ideas to quickly transform our mind to a clear and helpful state. The same approach can be used here as well to bring helpful, meaningful progress.

Today, we need another level in the elevator. The LIGHT and LOVE floor!

Nearly 60 years ago in 1963, a great leader saw past the raw human emotion and actions of many and offered a simple yet profound solution that is valid today:

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." – Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Remember, what we focus on expands and it is our CHOICE!

We are powerful individuals and can overcome negativity to enable the very best of ourselves to solve great challenges. And we are even greater when we are together!

Rise above, get clarity, do what is right, do the best you can, show people you care, and be the light that drives out darkness!

Never Give Up!

We have hope!

Change your perspective!

It’s been nearly three months since COVID-19 has largely wreaked havoc here in the US and much of the globe. And many people have found themselves seemingly caught in a downward spiral that has no apparent way out. These times and these current challenges have brought change unlike anything expected or anticipated. While the current view and forecast for many appear overwhelming, the human spirit is resilient, and we have a very stout and extensive history of overcoming. This means we have hope and a great deal of control if we do not surrender it.

A downward spiral is defined as when we find ourselves slipping into a lower mood and our mental health feels as though it is in a decline. It is a slippery slope and often hard to handle as we may not really understand the situation. This drop in mental health drains our intellectual functions and heightens the effect of hopelessness, frustration, and irritation. In this state, our thinking is less reliable, and we do and say things we normally would not in a higher mood state. It’s been proven that we actually lose points of both IQ (intelligence quotient), a measure of a person's reasoning ability and EQ (emotional intelligence), the ability to understand, use, and manage ones’ own emotions in positive ways to mitigate stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others, overcome challenges and defuse conflict.

The rapid changes our globe has experienced in the recent three months has triggered many to feel out of control and stressed, further compounded with being isolated (quarantined) for this extended period of time.

The first step to slowing, stopping, and altering course of the downward spiral is to identify the causes that change our mood negatively. Understanding the signs that things are not going well requires self-awareness and listening to how different situations make us feel. Sometimes these cannot necessarily be avoided, however, bringing awareness will allow us to adjust and positively change our course.

Several years ago, Dr. Larry Senn created the “Mood Elevator”. In this simple yet profound tool, we can quickly gauge where we are on the mood elevator and change our mood.

MOOD ELEVATOR

You can find a downloadable PDF version of the mood elevator at https://themoodelevator.com/ to print and share with your family, team, and organization.

The GREAT NEWS is we have abundant control over our mood by our thinking, our thoughts. Our thoughts create emotions which create actions which create results.

Here are some actions to take now to stop the downward spiral, move to the positive side of the mood elevator, and remain there!

1.     Be mindful of your feelings, your state of mind, and the root causes of the negative feelings. Make a conscience and honest effort to account of where you are on the mood elevator. Stop negative and unhealthy thoughts from becoming an emotion.

2.     Be responsible for you. Being of sound mind is a combination of proper care, nourish, application, and continued growth in mind, body, soul, emotion, and spirit.

3.     Realize your thoughts may be unreliable in the downward spiral. Delay making key decisions, create space, and move up the mood elevator. If you must act immediately, use caution and do not exaggerate. Seek council of others to confirm a sound decision.

4.     Change your viewpoint through gratitude, creativity, hope, and humor. Adding a daily gratitude practice is a powerful mood acceleration. It has been said that discontent cannot exist in a grateful heart. The top end of the mood elevator provides perspective and clear vision for optimal handling of challenges and complexity.

5.     Be self-aware and attentive to your influence. Moods are infectious. The culture and mood of a family, team, and organization, is most greatly influenced by the influence of their leader.  

Where do you find yourself on the mood elevator?

Are you in a downward spiral?

What can you do TODAY to alter your downward spiral and positively change our outcome?

“You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.” – Paulo Coelho

Get out of the river (the downward spiral) now, it is within our control!

Never give up and Get Creative!

CRISIS

What you Focus on Expands

Do you remember when you were a kid and you wanted your first bike? You probably saw it everywhere you went, and it seemed like every kid had it except you? And it was all you could think about. We may have matured a bit since then but it’s the same with anything we place in priority in our minds today, the focus and attention to the thought causes it to expand.

This expansion effect can be in our favor or serve to our disadvantage.

One area this it proven true over and over again is in one’s values.

Do you have values? Personal values for your own life? Maybe you have value with your company?

Values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work. They should determine your priorities and core responses to any decision during good or bad times.

Many companies have values and sometimes, unfortunately, they are just words on a website or a wall in the corporate office. They are not in focus and therefore do not expand. This becomes most clear in times of crisis as true character is often revealed.

On the contrary, when a company and their people really know their values and live them every day, decisions are made easy at every level of the company. This includes decisions made in good times and bad times, including and most importantly, during a crisis.

My first career role was with Federal Express, later renamed FedEx. I learned early that “every package is the golden package” and their slogan that many still associate with them today is “when it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight” was very popular. Everyone knew these and it served in everyone’s daily performance. Later in my time with FedEx, the adopted the Purple Promise “I will make every FedEx experience outstanding”. Seven simple words that define their value, what is most important to them. It creates a since of ownership at every level that if they do their part, every customer experience with any service FedEx offers will be outstanding. This places the customer clearly first. In times of crisis, everyone knows these seven words and making decisions comes easy as the answer to any question is viewed through the purple promise. It makes the decision process easy especially during a crisis.

I spent time recently with Amazon as a global leader of process engineering and continuous improvement. Like FedEx, Amazon knows its values. They call them leadership principles. There are 14 and everyone lives and breathes these every day. They have become a part of the core fabric in every leader and associate. They start with them, work with them and end the day with them. I connected deeply with many and one I like best is Customer Obsession. It states “Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.” This puts the customer at the forefront of everything they do and in the answer to every question or potential change in operation.

With these strong values present in everyone at both FedEx and Amazon, decisions are made easy, especially during a crisis. Both companies have played critical roles in this current crisis and they have been able to react quickly, pivoting to address global needs and direct the team successfully towards putting the customer first.

Business will always follow values if they are kept front of mind and in focus.

What words define your values?

Integrity?

Honesty?

Excellence?

Commitment?

Reliability?

Dependability?

Teamwork?

Sustainability?

Growth?

Others?

What will you do to ensure your values are on point with your vision, mission and in the front of you mind and the minds of you team?

In a crisis, unexpected events occur. We may have created incredible business continuity plans covering everything from political disruptions to natural disaster recoveries and yet surprises always surface with no planned playbook response. COVID-19 has certainly proven that.

I close with the famous serenity prayer.

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” - Reinhold Niebuhr

With strong values that are front of mind, you can focus on what you can control, expanding favor!

Never Give Up and Never Settle for Mediocrity!