Are you a Be-Er or a Do-Er?

Since we were little kids, we learned that actions are what the adults expect from us; "be a good boy and clean up your room," "be a good girl and do your homework." And when we do take on these actions, we are being seen and rewarded. So what do we do? We focus on actions. 
Yes, for many of us, it is natural to be doers and focus on actions.
 But is it the only way we show up? I believe some of us are DO-ers, and some of us are BE-ers. 

 In today's video and article, I will help you identify your inner tendency. Are you leaning towards doing or being? Are you a Do-er? Or a Be-er? 

Are you the one mainly focusing on actions? You have a to-do list, plan all the time, and run fast. If that's you, you are a doer who focuses more on actions than your emotions or others' emotions. Who has time to talk or explore them? And maybe, at times, it can be easier to focus on work and, this way, avoid getting in touch with big emotions that are uncomfortable. If that's you, you are a Doer; this is your tendency. 

 And maybe this is you; you feel that your emotions lead you; whether it is a room filled with people or a 1:1 meeting, you can sense the energy in the room. At times it can feel too much, or it can feel that you must protect others or your emotions, and that might bring to lashing out. Having all emotions surrounding you requires you to take a break, breathe, recharge and maybe even recover, and at times even take a day off. If that's you, you are a Be-er who is led by your emotions.

 And maybe this is you; your thoughts lead you. You feel like your peers know much more than you. And there is so much more that you can learn. You need to learn more and get more data; you need to hold on to action before you are sure you have enough information. This makes you an expert at what you do, and many people come for your advice. If this is you - you are led by your thoughts; you think before you act. You are Be-er led by thoughts.

 Which one are you?
Are you being led by your actions, by your emotions, or by your thoughts?
 You might respond: "Well, it depends on the situation."  I agree you could show up differently in different situations, and the more aware we are, the more agile we are to show up in different ways.  Still, we all have a tendency, and we lean toward this tendency when we are stressed or overwhelmed. Where do you go when you are stressed or overwhelmed? For example, when I am stressed, I will lean toward the actions first and check in with my emotions and thoughts. What is your tendency?

 Is it bad?

No, doing is not better than being, and being is not better than doing. It is essential to create awareness and learn how to work with it with your leadership, especially when you are stressed, and learn how to work with peers, your leaders, and direct reports when you identify if they are do-ers or be-ers.

 So what can you do or be when you learn your tendency?

If you are a Be-er, you will go first to your emotions or thoughts before moving to actions. The value in that is that in moments when the doers will go too quickly into action, you will slow them down and keep them from getting into trouble, even risk that is too big. Keep challenging the team by asking questions like:

• Have you checked what people feel about this move?

• Have you checked what you think about this move?

• Have we collected enough data to move into action? What's missing?

• How do you know that this is the right move?

 On the other hand, it is also essential to move into action, and people can get frustrated if you slow them or the process to collect more data, learn more, or believe that we can't start because everyone is concerned about the change.

What can you do differently to avoid these blind spots?

 Be-er feelings

• Sometimes, you assume that everyone FEELS the same as you do. Each time I send my leader-be-ers who are led by emotions to go and have a conversation with people, they learn that many do not feel the same.  Could it be that not everyone feels like you? Don't assume. Ask.

• Could it be that you over-protect your team and can give them more work or opportunities? Ask, don't assume.

• Recharge alone – you have a tendency to give. Take time to be alone and manage your energy.

 Take a few moments in the morning, noon, and afternoon to ask yourself – how do I feel? What do I need? And listen to your needs.

BE-er Thoughts

- Yes, you are a Subject Matter Expert, and probably your team too – but at times, the overdoing of learning and diving costs you in being recognized. Until you think it is enough, someone else takes the lead (and risks) of doing it and receives the recognition.

- When is it going to be enough? It feels that no matter how much you learn, you want more data and more info. Stop and ask, "with the information I have, what the first step is I can take."

- If you can't move into action, find a doer, an accountability partner, or a coach that will ask you: What is the first step you can take with the information you have right now?

Doers
You like to run fast and don't like when people slow you down. But being slowed down or even stopped. It might be a sign for you to lean back and ask yourself: 

• Why am I being slowed down?

• What information or data have I neglected to collect that I am being slowed down or stopped by others?

• Collect the data your BE-ers challenge you to collect: the numbers, thoughts, and emotions you were missing. You love a good conversation, so go and talk with a few people and ask them direct questions that you feel so comfortable asking, like:

• What are you concerned about?

• What do you think I am ignoring right now?

• Where can you challenge my thinking?

 Remember, doing is not better than being, and being is not better than doing. We need those two energies to bring out the best in ourselves, our company, and our teams to thrive. 

 We need to challenge each other.

When the team or individuals lean toward emotions, we can invite digging more into data and action.

 When the team is digging deep into the data and is slow on the action, it is time to ask: What is the first step we can take with the data we have right now?

 And when the team is running too fast to action, we can challenge them to look at data they might have missed with emotions and numbers.

 Diversity can come in different ways, and to help your organization, your team, and yourself to thrive, make sure you have both do-ers and be-ers with their emotions, thoughts, and actions to support each other. What is one step you can take to move forward with the information you have learned in this article and video?

 If you liked this video and article and would like to go beyond with the leadership, subscribe for more, or share with someone you think can get value from this article or video. Sharing is caring! 

External Vs. Internal Accountability - How to Achieve Your Goals Without Going Against Yourself.

 Setting your goals is mostly the easy part of achieving your goals. The hardest part is committing to them. I find that many of us cannot create a consistent commitment to our goals and achieve them not because we are lazy, procrastinators, or lack motivation but because many of us work against ourselves. We don't understand the mechanism of how we can achieve goals, and that's why we fail.

 To better understand our motivation to act, we must understand the difference between external and internal accountability. 

Internal accountability:

If you are motivated by internal accountability, that means that when you tell yourself that you are going to act on a goal, you WILL follow your goals at the time you allotted for it. 

External Accountability:

On the other hand, if you have found yourself wondering why it is so easy for you to be accountable for your team or friends, but it's so challenging to be accountable to yourself, you are one of the people who are motivated by external accountability. By the way, most of us are motivated by external accountability. 

Remember I shared that you can go against yourself by setting your goals? Let's see how you can go with the system that is right for you. 

Systems for people who are motivated by external accountability:

External Accountability
To accomplish your goals, create systems that lean on one person or a group. 

One on One

• Accountability Partner. 
   An accountability partner is someone you partner with to achieve similar goals; business goals, weight goals, workout goals - in a nutshell, you want to achieve the same goals. 
  For example, my accountability partner and I have supported each other's business for several years. We challenge each other, brainstorm ideas to support each other's businesses, share each other's knowledge, resource and network to support each other, and we also make sure to remind each other to spend time on self-care. To gain excellent results from having an accountability partner, I recommend co-designing what will motivate you to stay accountable and committed to each other's goals. Before you have the conversation with another person, start by asking yourself who can be the right persona to keep you accountable.

** You can find more information on establishing accountability partnerships in the links below. 
Click Here and get your accountability checklist

• Pets
  Yes, an accountability partner can also be a pet. For example, I had a few clients who got dogs to start walking, focus on self-care, or running to change workout habits or wake up early in the morning.

One to Many  
An accountability partner can be a one-on-one partnership, but it can also be a group partnership.

• Mastermind or Group Coaching - One of the ways to establish a group partnership is mastermind, or other groups that help each team member achieve their goals. These groups can be virtual groups that meet on Zoom or other online options or in person. I believe that the best ones are groups that focus on a specific topic, like speaking skills or growing your leadership skills or business.

• Online

  • Online forums - you can use online forums or other groups to achieve your goals and do it at your own pace and time with less personal commitment.

  • Social Media - Some people gain from posting online to their community about how they will commit to achieving a goal.
    Being accountable to the people who follow me on social media made me commit to my goals. For example, when I wanted to get better at online videos, I posted on social media that every time I ran, I would post a video and share my thoughts and my ideas from the run. This is how I established "on the run" videos that were on my social media accounts for almost three years.

Internal Accountability. 

1. Gamification

Some of the people that are motivated internally are also competitive. If you are inspired by competition, create a game with rules that will encourage you to stay competitive to achieve your goals. Here is how you can use the system of gamification. 

• The first step, write down all the goals you want to achieve.

• The second step is you give each goal points. And here is the competitive part: the more challenging the goal is for you, the higher the issues you will assign for these goals.
  For example, Let's say that writing an email is an easy goal for you, then you will assign it one point. And networking is a goal that is quite challenging for you, so you will get 100 points if you go to a networking event and speak with at least one person; if you talk with five, maybe you will even get more points.

• The next step is to decide how many points you want to achieve at the end of the week.

• Repeat the system each week and adapt the numeric weekly goals.

And you can even go the Hybrid way here. Some people I know use the same system to compete against their accountability partner - what a great way to engage both gamification and accountability partners!

The most important is:

1. Don't go against yourself.

2. Don't feel limited by playing against yourself; you are more than welcome to use this system with others.

3. If you are motivated by external accountability, create the systems with another person or a group. If you are internally motivated, ask yourself how you can make competitive goals to achieve the challenging goals that are important to you.

If you liked this video and/or article, please share or subscribe.

I See - How to Recognize Others as Leaders?

One of the top three reasons people leave organizations? Lack of recognition from their managers. When people come to me and share with me their frustration with their managers not recognizing them, here is what I ask them: "What if your managers have never learned how to recognize others?" Why do I ask that?

Because I used to be that manager, and today I'm going to share with you a few simple ways of how you can feel more comfortable recognizing others and also feel more comfortable when others recognize you.

Hi, my name is Noa, and I work with leaders, executives, and founders of companies just like you to go beyond with their leadership.

Are you ready? Let's go.

Some of us find it very challenging to be recognized by others or recognize others. I was the same. And here are two main reasons why for some of us, it can feel so challenging.

The first one, as always, is our parents.

And the second one is our culture.

Maybe this experience will sound familiar to you. When I was a little girl and came home with a good grade, my father asked me why 99 and not 100? That question, "Why 99 and not 100," followed me for years; I always asked myself, "How can I do things better? How can I take myself from 99 to 100?" The problem was that not only was I having this internal conversation with myself, but I also started having the exact expectations of the people I worked with and managed. And by the way, also with my kids.

The second reason that recognition was so challenging was that I came from a red pen culture. Erin Meyer, the researcher and the author of the book, the Culture Map, explains that red pen culture is a culture where a student submits their work to the teacher they receive it with red pen notes. In those notes, the teachers write down what the student could have done better to do the work. People from a red pen culture will always ask themselves: "how can I do things better?" and that would be their focus.

 When I moved to the US, I realized I needed to shift how I communicate with others, including my kids, and start recognizing what others do more.

But how do you do that? How do you work on the mental muscle of recognizing others? Working on a muscle, just like in the gym, takes time. And I believe it has to first start with working on yourself.

The first thing I had to learn was how to shift my focus from what's NOT working to what works.

Shifting your focus to what's working is not an easy path. And you have to train yourself and work on that mental muscle to learn how to shift the focus from what's not working to asking yourself again and again first, what's working?

When you learn how to do this work with yourself, then you can start working on how to do this work with others.

How do you do that with others?

Here is a simple way that you can recognize others.  What people really want is that their actions will be seen. And that's why the simple way for you to start working on the mental muscle of what's working is to use two words: I See.

So if you find it challenging to recognize others, next time when you sit with others, start the sentence when you want to recognize them with "I see." Or "I noticed."

Now be very specific when you use the words: I see/I noticed.

Rather than saying "good job," or "Awesome work" (this is vague and people don't really know what to do with this feedback) be more specific, and say for example, "I saw yesterday in the meeting that you took initiative in the conversation, and the report you suggested is working very well for the team. Thank you for taking that extra step to help our team move forward."

Building on "I see"

And here is a cool way you can build on the idea of "I see" that I learned from one of my executive clients who implemented this method of "I see" to recognize their people.

When people share with you what they and their team are doing to ask for recognition, you can ignore it, or you can build on their sharing by using the “I see.”

"Yes, I have seen what you and your team have done in the past few weeks. It was a great opportunity for you and your team. And I loved to see the email from the CFO recognizing what you and your team did this morning. It means that you are building your team’s brand to be seen as experts of … – well done."

So remember first train your brain to look at what's working rather than what's not working, and then play with "I see" / "I have noticed" and share in detail what you see so people can know and understand what you mean and build on their momentum. And if needed, you can build on the I see/I notice when you see your people seeking recognition  (and may it be a learning opportunity for you that they don't need to seek recognition, release them from this burden and initiate the recognition before they ask for it).

A great resource to learn more about this topic is the book How Full is Your Bucket by Tom Rath and Donald O.Clifton Ph.D