LifeWorks Today Podcast → 03 The New Culture Model

[Music] Welcome To Life Works today this podcast is provided so that together we can create a world in which all people love their lives our current human systems aren’t working the way of superior versus inferior or management versus employee or adult versus child we need a powerful positive and sustainable transformation this podcast is for you who seek to be happy fulfilled and peaceful so that your Abundant Life Works today so welcome back to the show life works today this is episode three so I’m very excited to be here I encourage you to listen to episodes one and two if you haven’t yet done that uh the first episode was called spitting in the soup uh and what I was really talking about in that episode were the four control models using autocratic behaviors incentives and Rewards judgment and enabling or pampering and spoiling all in an attempt to kind of manipulate behavior and since I did that one I went back and I looked up the term spitting in the soup because I wanted to give you the exact words of a renowned therapist Alfred Adler who is the psychologist that we follow Adler recognized that stirring up change can be difficult so spitting in the soup is a memorable metaphor it reminds us that sometimes it’s necessary to spoil the fun in order to alter negative patterns and create positive behavior change and spit in the soup so that it’s ruined so spitting in the soup takes the joy out of a negative behavior pattern that we may not have been aware was not as helpful as we thought so I love that term kind of gross but does it doeses the trick in episode two I introduced what do you do instead of using a control model so I sort of got started in what’s a responsibility based culture model and what are the primary beliefs around how to manage people what are the outcomes what are the beliefs you hold about people so if you remember the responsibility based model is one in which people hold a really positive belief about other people where in the four control models the belief about people were very limiting and very small and so in the responsibility based model we talked about how it’s really important for people to own their own tasks for managing their relationships managing their own mood their own engagement their own productivity their own plan and when they do that they feel a sense of fulfillment especially when it’s in service to more than just themselves so we talked a little bit about the importance of having social interest and I also talked about uh some of the tenants of the adarian psychology model I realize today I wanted to kind of say a little bit more about that that one of the tenants that I brought up is that as people we’re hardwired for a sense of belonging and significance we’re hardwired to feel that we matter and when we do we feel four very core needs and those core needs are that we feel empowered that we feel that we have a voice that we can influence things we feel that we are connected to one another in meaningful and joyful ways like a sense of you know hi I’m so glad you’re here um we also feel lovable which is different than being loved so when somebody feels lovable they’re actually feeling seen and heard so a a way that we would be with someone so that they would feel lovable would be to ask more questions about how they see the world and not bring our own agenda or our own intent to necessarily convert them or change them or fix them but to look for the gift and the Delight in who they actually are how they think how they feel emotionally and so that’s something that is often missing that we don’t know how to do a great job of sometimes and then people also need to feel that they have opportunities to contribute to others and because we don’t always feel so great about ourselves it’s difficult for us to reach out and ask for help from other people and let them contribute to us because we’re sometimes stuck in our own patterns of shame or you know am I worthy um and it’s also very vulnerable to ask things of people and yet it’s a core need to help other people make contributions to us so those are just some of the things that are really core to that one U one of the Adler Concepts which is we’re social and we if you think about the control models they all work against people feeling empowered lovable connected and contributing and so I just kind of want to keep connecting those dots for you um I wanted to also in this episode I want to dig a Little Deeper and what is this responsibility based model you know what is what is it all about how do you get to it what are the components of it what are the things that cause it to be successful why do we need a responsibility based model so I really want to dig a little bit deeper into that and really a responsibility based model is as different as like a ranch house is to a twostory or a paleo diet is to a vegan diet or a punitive parenting model is to a leadership development parenting model so there a lot of U things that are really important to understand about what is this responsibility based model so that’s kind of where we’re going to be focusing today before I introduce Our Guest which I’m getting ready to do I’m very excited to introduce her I wanted to open with this quote and it’s a quote by Victor Frankle who was a survivor of uh the aitz camps and it kind of reminds me also of another person that was so incredible through difficulties which was Nelson Mandela but this quote by Victor Frankle it’s really Food For Thought He says between stimulus and response there’s a space and in that space is our power to choose our response and in our response lies our growth and our freedom so he’s talking about the response that comes when there’s a space where we can really check in with oursel and that’s really what the core of response ability it is response ability is the ability to respond from our deepest wisdom our truest self the love that we are and we can’t do that unless we pause between the stimulus and the response so I really want you to keep that in mind as I kind of move more deeply into this new culture model so now without further Ado I want to introduce Our Guest who is Lyn dorfield Lynn is a great friend of mine and a client of mine who has spent many years in educ ucation I think it’s 28 years but I’ll let her clarify that she recently retired as a monu educator in both public and private schools and now that she’s retired she’s wondering how did she ever have time to work so she’s very busy still today Lynn focuses on educating empowering and supporting people in Social and racial and racial Justice areas including the facilitating of healing ourselves and living as joyful beings and I love that because Lynn and I are really sharing a common purpose to create a world where people love their lives because if you’re loving your life that’s when you can be a loving and joyful living as a joyful being Lynn is also the mother of five children and nine grandchildren nine grand nine grandchildren and uh she like me raised her children with the adarian philosophy promoted by Rudolph drers who was a follower of Alfred Adler and she used that same philosophy when she was teaching at Monas and then at John Burrows she has a strong faith in the individual person how they can each one of them make a difference with others like myself Lynn is working to change things in the world by through one heart and one mind at a time so welcome to the show thank you thank you it’s such a privilege to be here and just one correction that I have never taught at buros but my kids went there okay when and that was just really supplemental to the monasa background that they had which so aligns with what you were talking about of for children that sense of individual responsibility but also a joy of learning and um we were thrilled to find out that uh cuz we had never thought about private school for our kids my husband and I were both Public School people and very happy with our education um but really learned the more we learned the more we found out what do you do for children nowadays um this sense of individual responsibility is so crucial and that we do matter and we do make an impact um and that’s what gets me so excited every time I hear your your your talks or read your I only saw online um what you have been presenting that’s out in the public and it’s so exciting it’s so exciting every time Lyn and I talk there is so much that we we’re so like-minded and like-hearted and even though you might hear us talking in this podcast about children it’s really the same Dynamic that people are dealing with in the workplace are dealing with in their churches their neighborhoods and their families all it’s everywhere system and that’s kind of what I’m bringing in that even though I’m quote retired the fact that what this work does impacts on so many levels I was listening just today on NPR um Tom her who used to be the head at new city school which has this phenomenal reputation for their education that they’ve done with children I’ve actually had three grandchildren that went through there so I know directly how awesome the programs are that these children experience where they create their own musicals I mean just anyway didn’t mean to Sidetrack that too much except that they were saying that public school today they’ve not done studies they’ve done them in military in corporate world in the um who am I leaving out um education corporations and Military and Military that they now want to prove how impactful studying virtues and in your program I think it’s values um but they were talking about virtues and even just taking four virtues and so incorporating that into the system education is changing how we’re raising our children is changing which it needs to be doing yes yes that’s why we talked about it in one of the previous episodes there were no real good old days people say why can’t we go to back to the good old days you know we just got to get that out of our head U but one of the things that’s kind of flashing through my head is you came to one of my workshops recently where we went over those four core needs people needing to feel a sense of Empower being empowered lovable connected and contributing and I just want to remind you of an exercise that I had you guys do maybe you could speak to it what I did was I had all the participants of that session partner up and they and I walked you through where you chose to look at the person across from you and you chose to listen to my words and and intend them for the people in front of you and in the first case you were actually doing it for the person you were that was in front of you and it was all about words that spoke to the beauty of their empowerment the beauty of their lovableness the beauty of their connectiveness the beauty of their contributions that they made and then I had you guys switch it up so the person was Hitler yeah and and I can remember when I first paired with a lady her goal is to make St Lewis the love capital of the world it was so easy to just stand and look at her with all this loving admiration while you had all these glowing things to say about her and it just it felt like we were rising to another level but then when you said you know now imagine that person is Hitler I just oh I felt down to the depths of the Earth and I just actually then realized wait a minute but wanted to just cry for that person how damaged they had to have been yes because the virtues you were describing you probably remember what they were did apply how carismatic how how intelligent how empowered yes and just that he hadn’t had the support he needed to do more loving fulfilling things with all of that power and all of that sense of connection and um it was really funny to watch some of you guys I don’t think it was you but some of you would just like as soon as it was Hitler you dropped hands before that people wanted to hold hands and everything right so um but it was really helpful because then you guys went on to look at someone and they represented the person you most dislike maybe the person who represents a political position you can’t stand or a religious position or some other position and for many groups that I’ve done this with that was the that was harder than Hitler so I don’t know if you had that experience maybe you can talk a little bit was it more difficult for you to kind of come to terms with there are these gifts inside of a Hitler that I had never really considered as opposed to the gifts in a person that you really really don’t care probably it was hardest I think looking at Hitler because everything else after that was just a shift and if we can look at someone in a world leadership capacity and try to have some kind of Kinder and gentler ways of looking at for me than looking at someone real in the life and there were several individuals I could Envision um I think because of having been from a teaching background and looking at people knowing any one of us can be magnificent powerful human beings no matter how damaged we have been given a support system and I want to be that Ally I want to be that person who truly believes in the other individual whatever that is and finds a way for them to feel empowered connected and contributing that is not sort of distorted right um it’s it’s really interesting because I think the reason I mentioned this in an earlier EP episode that when this approach was used in a prison the amount of people that were reincarceration average of 60 to 70% and one of the things I think were a cause of that is that if I could look at somebody in prison that maybe is in there for murdering somebody on the street corner because they wanted to be in a gang so bad yes maybe the only place they ever felt empowered lovable connected and contributing was in that gang now I can take them out of that monster box and think of them as you and I are no more no different than each other other than you didn’t think you had as many options for getting those needs met so you were willing to override your conscience and your fear of imprisonment to get those needs met right and that’s kind of what I want people to see that man if we write them off there’s no hope for them there’s no hope then yeah and and we also do it for ourselves like a lot of times I’ll say to people how many of you get up in the morning and look in the mirror and say things that make you feel empowered or is it oh God I think I have another wrinkle you know so uh we have a hard time looking at ourselves and being delighted we have a hard time connecting sometimes with aspects of ourselves that we don’t feel proud of we have a hard time seeing where we’re contributing when we can see places we don’t feel like we’re contributing we tend to look at what we’re not doing right yes just last last fall a friend we had been doing these weekly gatherings in our home and he just shared that he went down to the basement um to do his prayers or meditating and different things but he would also look in the mirror and just say I love you Roxy and I tried to envision myself going to a mirror and just and I tried it and it felt so ah right right we’re so much more comfortable looking for the things that are wrong with us instead of the thoughts that will actually make us feel empowered lovable connected and contrib so I I work on that you have given me just a lot of different skills that sometimes I actually remember to incorporate them that’s wonderful well and it sounds like it’s simple when we talk about it but in actuality we’re all fighting against these old systems you know and that’s and that’s why I really wanted to kind of even slow that in that quote between the stimulus and response so so many times we’re doing things out of what we’ve been taught and conditioned to do and we’re just in a reaction we’re not really thinking of that space in between stimulus and response right yes so um one of the things I’m so glad we got thank you for letting me go over those core needs because I realized I hadn’t covered those and those are crucial to you know is the culture that I’m using whether it’s in my workplace or in my home is it one in which it actively supports those four cor needs or does it tear those down I remember when my kids were growing up we did these kind of radical things like we would teach the kids how to grocery shop and we’d give them $200 and send them off to the store nowadays we’ probably get reported to the police but um it was a safe neighborhood and they’d been trained and uh we didn’t even have cell phone so they they’d have to go call us from the pay phone but what it did for them is they they came back from those experiences saying wow the checkout people thought we were crazy because you guys were handling hundreds of dollars your parents trust you and we could tell them you know yeah we’ve been trained and we know how to do this so we we did a lot of things to remove the beh behaviors that would take their feeling of empowerment down or their feeling of lovableness down and replace those with other behaviors and it’s amazing once your mind starts to do that and you start to change that were you did you have a thought about that I was just thinking of the Decades of change that when we raise children like that you probably look at your grandchildren and can see what a difference for them with the choices and responsibilities because their parents were raised with that as a opposed to what you so we really are I guess I’d use the line creating an Ever advancing civilization we’re not trying to raise perfect kids or perfect grandkids are perfect people exactly because mistakes are part of who we are that it’s okay to make mistakes but if you’re not even allowed to attempt if you don’t even get to buy something from a store how would you know what to do with it yeah so it was it was really a fun time because we could see that as we would invest in in them in that way it not only helped them it helped us to feel better as parents and better as leaders and I think a lot of people in companies they get a little disgusted with their employees but really it’s because they haven’t felt like they’ve known how to develop their people in a way that’s fulfilling for them yes so um one of the things I wanted to talk a little bit more about when I talk about the four corn needs you’ve heard me mention inferiority complex but I and I mentioned it in some of the last episodes but I didn’t explain it okay so inferiority complex is a term that was originated with Alfred Edler and basically what he was saying is if you don’t create certain kinds of conversations and certain kinds of conditions people will go into this place where they don’t like themselves and and my friend Mike bidder calls that shame Spirals and going into like this downward shame that we get stuck in and when we get stuck in it that’s when we do go in those um uninterrupted places of uh where we’re stressed out depressed anxious you know and a lot of times for me what I’m trying to learn to do in my life is really sit when those feelings come up and let um compassion be present with them because if you can’t kind of heal through what’s going on you’ll keep repeating patterns to reinforce that which is very much what individual psychology is will create conditions to keep reinforcing what we think is true so uh inferiority complex was a big deal to him and it’s it’s ironic in a way because beray Brown is so famous right now and she’s really speaking on the same thing she’s saying we’re one of the most overmedicated over addicted cohort of adults and it’s because we go into that sense of Shame and unworthiness yes and then we can’t actually we don’t feel those four core needs so it’s just kind of a vicious cycle and so until organizations as a whole whether it’s a church or a workplace or a school know that we got to protect people from going into that inferiority complex and really understand what causes that will keep creating the very source of all the struggles that people have right do you did you see some of that in in the way that you were with either your kids at school your kids absolutely absolutely and one of the blessings that I had was learning what re-evaluation counseling talks about that we really are born power ful loving zestful Dynamic human beings and it’s the things that happen to us the distress that gets put on us and if we’re not allowed to really look at that at honored as you said feel the feeling but it doesn’t mean you stay there you’re just listen to and heard and you will come up with a very elegant solution if you’ve been honored for it respected and right and that’s one of the things probably why I fell in love with monor so much because she really was all about that individual ual responsibility um but we can learn we can go and do and setting up my job as the teacher was just set up the environment for the child to experiment and having complete faith in that child that they’re going to choose what’s needed for them the environments prepared for them um and carrying that through then with our children and switching to love-based discipline not fear based discipline absolutely and you know what’s interesting is monari and adaran were relatively small segments of the whole like most kids didn’t have those experiences whether they were in their homes or in their schools so we’ve got a whole set of generation of people that are still a little bit more conditioned toward the punitive fear-based way of doing things right very much so and that kind of explains I think why we have an ongoing problem with Employee Engagement in companies and engagement in churches engagements in um helpful Endeavors in the community uh in the Gallup I never cease to really refer back to that because uh the Gallup is an organization that kind of keeps track of how many people are disengaged and in general it’s about 71% who are in some level of disengagement and I think you can carry that through almost anywhere you go that’s why we have an 8020 rule you know where 80% of the people are doing the heavy lifting so in the Gallup survey they found that 55% of people are just kind of skimming by we call them the C minus people because they come to work every day they do their job but don’t ask me to do anything above and beyond because I’m just here to do the bare minimum even though they don’t really say those words that’s the way that they come across so you don’t go to them when you really aren in a pinch because they’re not going to be your Agame people right and then there’s about 16% of people who typically actually caused problems those are called actively disengaged we all know who they are when we see them they’re the ones that are gossiping constantly complaining and and negative and judgmental out loud and you know just a lot of things that actually tear down they’re also the ones that might come to work drunk or high or living their life that way a lot you know and and so um the the why is bigger than the symptom the symptom is all that disengagement but the why comes from those four core needs and that inferiority so what that’s why when it it’s eliminated in an organization which we’ve personally seen I’ve personally seen it’s it’s so addictive because why would anybody tolerate 70% disengagement if we can change that so I’ve been in the business world too for a short time kind of an interim and you’re right you have so described what I saw um you often felt like you were swimming against the mainstream if you are striving to just be honest fair just kind hardworking what’s wrong with you yeah exactly yes don’t don’t get us too happy and hopeful here right right and and I would just keep reminding myself it’s just like dealing with kindergarteners you know it really is it really is I think sometimes people worry uh if I use you know examples of school or children or whatever but it’s the same exact principles because we all have those inner fears within us we just try to be more sophisticated about how we play it out right or not some people are not so sophistic core things yes yes so you really were identif do you want to refresh real quick what those four are yeah the four core needs the four core needs and you want to just keep thinking about this for yourself empowered means do you help yourself and others to feel that they have a voice that they have influence that they that they can make a difference that they have power that it’s okay that they use their power for many people the messages they got about power were it’s not safe to use your power you’re bad if you use your power you’re not a good girl or a good boy if you even as an adult so empowered is a big deal there’s whole communities of people that are marginalized that don’t feel that they have the power that is you know and they don’t have the financial power or they don’t have the the voice that they deserve to have that sort of thing um the second one I always like to think of is lovable because lovable isn’t the same as somebody loving you if I’m helping you be lovable I’m listening to you I’m asking you questions about how you see the world I’m not here to listen to those to fix you or change you but to learn from you so when we help anyone even if the CEO and we’re talking to the janitor the goal should be how can I learn from the janitor as much as he can learn from me and vice versa and um uh connected just means that we we show up with to people with that caring gaze with that joy of seeing somebody that they feel that they’re welcome into the community I mean almost all school shootings go back to kids that felt isolated and unwanted and disconnected and that’s what happens when we get into the shame spiral is we go into this place of wanting to isolate I know I’m tempted to do it where I just want to shut down and hide um from anybody that even loves me because I can’t believe they could love me in that moment you know and so that sense of that you can go to somebody through the thick and the thin the good and the bad that they’re going to be there for you no matter what is so critical and yet we don’t put those signals out we don’t have those conditions and conversations for that and then the the one that I also think we struggle with is giving people more opportunities to contribute to us we’re so in the inferiority complex that we don’t want to get vulnerable and allow other people to help or do for us cuz somehow we feel better when we’re in the position of giving than when we’re in the position of receiving and yet we’re robbing people of opportunities to give to us wow so that’s why I invited you today ly I wanted to let you contribute to me I also know you have tons to contribute to the people that are listening well you just are identifying so well what I feel like the shift in my life has been from being in education and doing so much of this but now um as I said at the beginning of how did I ever have time to work because we are very involved and one just example is you’ve heard of the movie Nights the potlock movie Nights that Joyce and I have been doing and I’m in awe that it’s been five years now we were we’ve been doing this and whether it’s neighbors or from church groups or people that we meet through the Interfaith the women’s group um people we meet in the grocery store and say hey we’re doing this come join us and finding the variety of people and people want to be of service they want to contribute to our neighbors our neighborhood and our society um but it is all about connection and so our topics have always dealt with as you said earlier racial Justice or social justice issues empowering others um we had so much fun the movie we just showed was Harriet and only one other person there there maybe 16 people only one of them had seen the movie already and to me this ought to be required in all the schools and churches to just see what one person really has made a difference in our past and can continue to make well and having been at your events I know that you welcome people to have a voice you welcome everybody to share in the group you welcome you you make it safe and and enjoyable to have that sense of community and that sense of service and I don’t find a whole lot of places where that’s happening and you choose topics that matter that are about empowerment not just not not that some of the fun topics might be fun but right you know half the time we don’t really hear those things that could change hearts and change lives so uh great example of that I want to um just talk a little bit more about the responsibility based model because when I talked about the control models one of the things I said was common to those four control models is they’re they’re all about manipulating people from the outside in and I’m saying manipulating on purpose because whether we’re conscious of it or not we’re using those tactics to get what we want from people yes and those things we want from people aren’t wrong it’s just the the mechanisms for getting them are not helpful to them or to us in actuality so one of the things that um is true about those control models is they are extrinsically motivating so motivating people from the outside in which weakens their intrinsic motivation so I just kind of want to make mention of that because in future episodes I’m going to be going over what are those four intrinsic motivators if we’re going to dump the extrinsic motivators what would be the intrinsic motivators so that will be an upcoming topic but I I kind of want to talk about this in sort of conjunction with the responsibility based model when we talk about leadership in our World empowering people helping them feel lovable connected and contributing means that everybody needs to be developed in their leadership so I don’t care if you’re uh 5 years old or 55 or 95 you know we all need to be developed in that internal leader so one of the things we ask people are what are the the top three relationships you have to manage in order to be an influence in the world and it’s a really I’m curious if I’ve ever did I ever go over that with you I’m I’m not remembering discing do you mind if I do that it’s kind of putting you on the well you might have to pull pull some teeth to and you can answer wrongly because that I bet a lot of people out there in the you know listening audience will so what do you think the most important relationship is for you to manage in order to be an influential person in anyone’s life even if you’re a little kid what what relationship do you need to manage well to be an influencer for me it comes back to self I need to be able to just manage what I do and that it is is a new day every day yes I mean I will make mistakes and I have always believed that it’s okay to make mistakes I mean it’s often very embarrassing and uh you mentioned the shameful issues but also that’s also who we are as human beings so even for my my own children and and kids that it is okay to make mistakes but you how do you own up to them that might have been one of my own personal things and what conditions and ation were there that kept you from slipping out of empowered lovable connecting and contributing right if you had the conditions that didn’t make it so unsafe for you right right so you’re absolutely right it is that first we have to be aware of what am I thinking feeling and doing right so if we don’t have that how could we POS you know positively influence another when we’re blind to what we’re up to but but let’s say that that’s you got that handled pretty well okay what’s the second most important relationship to manage and why to be a good influencer in the world I think if I were still teaching I would be looking at that position but since I’m not it’s just my day-to-day connections with people so kind of your peers okay that sure that’s a good way to identify what and and as a teacher you would have said your students well I would have said my students okay so actually to be a good leader but I I feel the children were such a critical part of that right right often people will say it’s the person I’m leading right okay but we would say the most important second relationship is the relationships you have with authority figures ah so whether that’s your parents whether that’s your exactly thinkal with your stuff yes eight principles in 12 years it’s like okay it’s hard to create sometimes our authority figures are our bosses sometimes our authority figure are the policemen that pulls us over when we get a ticket sometimes they’re the government right right like I remember there was a guy in a car with me and he said I said why don’t you wear your safety belt and he said I’m not letting the government control me that’s a person with Authority issues that’s not a free person right so Authority is really an interesting thing to consider how am I managing I remember um years ago I went over to creep cor Lake and I just brought a notebook and I wrote All My Free associations with the words boss authority figure leader and they were mostly negative associations oh wow domineering bossy uh controlling like that’s what I had experienced sure and I had had often felt at the victim of instead of realizing that I abdicated a lot of times abdicated power and so learning how to work through Authority issues creates in you a strong leader because if you can’t deal with your Authority issues you will carry those Authority behaviors when you’re trying to lead other people so if you don’t deal with who you think is overc controlling in your life you’re going to be overd dominating when you’re leading others right you won’t know how to work through that okay it kind of reminds me of what I was telling you when we were driving over here about I’m not going to say who it is cuz I don’t want to give it up in the family but there’s a relative of mine and um remember I said he was saying no to me yes but he was saying no under the table so this particular relative I had asked them to do something they agreed to do it didn’t do it didn’t do it didn’t do it and I finally said do you know that you’re really saying no with your actions even though you’re saying yes with your words you know have you do you feel that you can say no and yes with your authority figures meaning this person’s parents right and he said no yeah and I said well you you want to work on that because it was messing with his relationship with me it was messing with which was another authority figure and it was going to continue to mess with him as he became an authority even with his friends right isn’t that a weird oh that’s what I love that you are so Adept at seeing these things inside it’s like oh I needed you all along with with raising my kids and teaching but that’s okay I mean everything in its couldn’t use your help exactly I had to learn this I had to learn that that’s that’s and and I had to work through it like my article that I wrote from that was called you’re not the boss of me because deep down inside us if we don’t have our Authority issues worked out we’re going to go into who’s you know you’re not the boss of me I’m not letting the government control me right I mean it’s just crazy how how slave we are to our fears about Authority and it’s in our own heads even if we’re a little kid you can see little kids that don’t do that but you see other many others that do well especially as a female I think though I’m going to go home to my mirror and try saying that a couple times in the mirror just to see what feelings does that evoke what images do I get wait will you be saying you’re not the boss of me because I was raised in a military family and it was always you know it it’s how high do you want me to jump sir kind of thing um and then ask actually to as female even even at my retired age but what’s so marvelous is seeing the difference in my children they don’t feel that way the girls and the boys and I don’t even know that it’s always wrong to say yes sir or yes ma’am to someone because but like we were talking about in the car you can’t say a real yes if you don’t have the freedom to say No Ex and and little kids kind of know this but they but after a while they even forget that they’re rebelling and that’s what I saw in this relative I saw that he didn’t even see he was saying no in his behavior and so he he needs to start working with his authority figures which in his instance are his teachers and his parents you know and for many of us it’s our parents or our teachers even as adults so Lynn before we get into the next relationship to manage I kind of like to keep people sitting on the edge of their seat a little I want to make sure to remind our listening audience about life work systems because we specialize in Performance Management through healthy culture transformation and I want to let you guys know that are listening to learn more about life workk system and how to get involved with us including access to information related to today’s podcast episode please visit our website at www.life workk systems.com subscribe to our podcast where you can find the main points on every podcast a list of all the podcasts and additional information on each episode we produce so we invite you to join our mailing list and to really research some of that data that we’re tying together for you in articles in webinar in surveys and things like that um so that you can get as much support around some of these Concepts as you want because we have about 200 articles in there and then it also gives you a way to contact us by phone or email so we really invite you to do that so are you on the edge of your seat Lynn about what’s the third relationship what is the third relationship oh my goodness what do you think it is well my first reaction is I I think of it in in terms of God and me but for what we can talk about um easily here um no okay can you see how God could be an authority figure oh absolutely so for many people it is their relationship with God because they’ve imposed on God a lot of the controlling or manipulative or harmful or harsh things that their human parents or the human teachers did so sometimes it means I got to get right with my authority figure in God right and um so even being able to shake our fist at God and say you’re not the boss of me you know and actually it’s so funny because God is the least likely to be the boss of us always giving us free will you want to murder I’m not going to stop you but I sure wish you wouldn’t right exactly yeah so if it’s not Authority now okay um you’re not sure what it is no it’s actually your peers okay because how can you help lead the people that you’re trying to guide that maybe are looking up to you if you’re not getting along with your neighbors with your brothers and sisters whoever peers are to you okay peers could be uh the next or neighbor it’s anybody that doesn’t have any perceived power over you I thought you said the second one was the peers no so the first relationship is yourself right the second relationship to manage is with your authority figures which includes God okay and you said it oh the second one and that it could be the peers but the third is the third one is your peers yeah the third was your peers you don’t even want to try to manage a relationship with your peers if you’re not right with your authority figures because it’s also going to affect how you act with your peers interesting you know you’ve seen kids where they get all bossy with each other yeah well they’re learning they’re basically role playing and right well when we think about Authority typically we think about power over cuz many of our authority figures did power over all we have to do is see a few power over kind of authority figures and we might have issues okay even if the the people that were directly connected with don’t always do that when you run into an authority figure that’s kind of a push the thumb down on you isn’t attempting to lose your your ability to pause and be who you want to be I wonder if I’ve done enough work then in that area over all these many years that it’s like okay who do I think of as even the boss of me yeah sometimes it’s just a moment where somebody’s in a bad place and they’re kind of being all controlling but it’s it’s pinging on that feeling of you’re not the boss of me or no I won’t you can’t make me you know so it’s something around that sense that they have more power even if it’s an illusion uhhuh so with our peers we don’t typically feel like they have more power over us so we’re not as worried about them dominating us but we still might have issues with them okay that’ be interesting I to think about that yeah so when we manage our relationships with our peers what we’re really doing is we’re making relationships and their management a top priority so I’m going to say that again we make relationships and their management a top priority because you’re doing all that to be in service to those that you lead right right it’s it’s positioning you strengthening you um developing you into being a naturally helpful leader to other people even if you’re the little kid leading the adults sure like that eighth grader he was pretty able to go back and manage his relationship right with his authority figures and his peers got involved and so one of the reasons I wanted to emphasize that is in our new culture model we we have an actual image of a house okay and the foundation of the house is trustworthiness and what that means is that when I’m in relationship with people whether you’re my authority figure you’re my peer or you’re my subordinate in title I’m going to make having a 10 relationship with you number one do you know what I mean by that having a 10 relationship with you tell me so if I’m like right now I would say you and I we have a 10 I don’t think I’ve ever had anything less than a 10 with you right but let’s say we had a falling out over something okay and I knew we weren’t at a 10 right if I make it a priority to make our relationship a 10 I’m going to come to you and I’m going to say Lynn I’ve always always felt like we’re in such a great place with each other and right now I’m not I’m not giving us a 10 and I want to talk about it I may not even know what to do about it sure you know my sister Sandy were very very close and one day we had something that got in the way and I came over and I said you’re like my best friend and yet I wouldn’t be serving us if I didn’t tell you right now there’s something wrong and and we both worked it out really quickly but it was also important that one or more of us want to maintain that cuz a lot of times when people are in the workplace and they’re struggling I even had the other day I was doing a woman’s presentation at a uh the women’s professional women’s Association and it was all on mentoring and a a lovely volunteer came up and I said do you have any relationships that are not a 10 and she said yeah I have two and I said what number would you give them and she goes I think the first one I would give a five okay and she goes the second one I’d give a three which is really low like that’s problematic yeah and I said did did you even know you had two and that they were that low and she goes I didn’t so even the self-awareness to realize she had two relationships that she was sort of tolerating being in pretty big crisis with those relationships so being willing to manage all of the relationships in your life is a is a prerequisite in the control I mean in the responsibility based model okay and in the control model that’s not even important at all it’s all about getting what I want I don’t care if we’re a 10 right do yeah I like this I like this so that’s really a hard one for people they’re like oh well you can’t be a 10 with everyone being a 10 doesn’t mean you’re best friends with them it just means that you’ve resolved anything that’s actually causing uh a blockage or dis you know an inability to function well with that person yeah I like that so I need to write that one down which kind of leads me into another thing that I wanted to talk about um one of the things that we work on with Rel relationships being a 10 are what’s called psychological contracts so psychological contracts are when maybe you have a certain idea of what you’re required to give and what you’re requ and what you are entitled to get and maybe I have a different idea of that right and so we might not agree on what all that is which isn’t necessarily a problem if we don’t but if we don’t talk about it and it’s wrinkling us right then you would then it’s a problem so what would be a phrase that you would approach someone to say that because I feel like you’re so Adept at first of all recognizing when those exist but even being braver than that and addressing it well I’ll give you an example of one that happened in my family so one of my kids when they had their baby they had made this decision that they weren’t going to call anybody when they were having their baby okay that they were going to wait till the baby was birthed well I lived a couple doors away and I thought I’d be the first person to get the phone call right right so I had this expectation that as the mother I deserved to get a phone call when labor was ensuing right I agree that family had had decided from reading books and what kind of birth they wanted to have and that they wanted to keep it more between the husband and wife and all the they’re entitled honest to God they are entitled to that but my expectations were so different from that that when I got the call the next day that the baby had already been born I was hurt now the way we worked through that is I went to her and I said I’m hurt and then she was able to help me understand where she was coming from so we moved through that and we healed that but if you have a diff difference like that and you get irate or you get upset or you get hurt feelings or you feel insulted or something like that happens then you won’t work through that so now you don’t have a 10 but you’re not talking about it because you you can’t even believe it’s happened like how could you not see it my way right and yet it isn’t wrong or right it’s just very different very different so um another example would be cuz you and I are both baby boom rumors so we were raised with a whole set of belief systems like you have to earn respect and you have to respect your elders and things like that right and some of those I can see by your face we don’t always agree with all that but there’s some truth to those right there’s it’s not all wrong or anything like that but a lot of Millennials have been raised in a completely different mind shift like I know in my family there wasn’t a two-way street on learning like my parents thought it was their job to teach me they didn’t want to hear what I had to teach them Millennials they can go online and even the gens disas they can go online and become almost an a subject matter expert in certain things that they get passionate about why shouldn’t they teach us right even if they’re 10 years old why shouldn’t they teach us yeah that’s the biggest contrast that I just found I visited they have a grandparent day at two of my granddaughters uh classes and at their school which whether we mention it or not but um it’s new for grandparents to get to be having breakfast with the kids and having a class with them I went to to a freshman English class and the junior English class and the Freshman Class the kids actually sat in the middle of these u-shaped tables so that the grandparents could sit there so they were on the floor but still being so interactive with the studying um of English and how we use language and using different stories for language they were actually studying a book out of Iran of current kids raised there and it was a graphic novel which how many of us ever grew up with that was so unheard of but even more striking when I went to my junior the daughter that’s a junior in her class it literally was entirely run by the students yes they studied Edna Vincent Malle and her work and two students presented and the entire 40 minutes of the class I don’t think the teacher said more than a dozen words that is such a shift well and it isn’t that any one way is all wrong or all right it’s just like even when you see the Baby Boomers and the Millennials where it gets problematic is when the Baby Boomers say oh those presumptuous Millennials how dare they think I’ve I’ve worked hard to earn my my role of respect and my my ability to boss you know because I paid my stripes you know and then the Millennials are like those dinosaur baby boers that can’t get with the fact that we all have stuff you know and they’re both right and they’re both wrong correct so that’s why psychological contracts are so important to understand because our first assumption is you’re wrong I’m right right and and so and if I don’t even think you get me I’m going to separate myself emotionally from you and before you know it we’re not even friends we don’t even like each other or maybe I even quit if I’m in a relationship with you I quit the relationship or I quit the job and you might not even know what happened we certainly are seeing that in some situations today so psychological contracts are a big deal but they are more likely and absolutely likely to be resolved if we hold the foundation that relationships are more important than anything else in the old way relationships were nice to have but not need to have correct now they’re absolutely essential to have thank goodness and we’re scared we’re scared that we’re not going to do that very well or we’re scared that that’s going to take too much time it’s got to be fascinating when you go into different organizations and seeing is it truly gener ational shifting and is it taking place because it is our young people that are going to really have to be impacting the world to such a degree but there’s so much more connection when they work together that way and seeing how much faster they accomplish things and some of the ideas that they get like out of nowhere like where did that come from but it was because they were basically teamworking their thoughts yes yes so the um we’ll talk about this more as we go forward in the podcast but but having a a responsibility based workplace culture there’s some investment that people have to make into one another into shifts and and it isn’t all that long but it feels long when we’re in it because we’re moving out of this I’ve got to fix you and convert you and change you into tell me who you are let me share who I am let’s find a way to trust each other let’s find a way to be at a with each other let’s find a way to maintain that now speeding forward but it but you have to slow down to get there and a lot of people just think there’s no time to slow down but we can’t afford not to slow down I always say it’s like having a check engine light come on and say well I can’t deal with that well it’s you better or it’s going to be bad for you right what a great goal to look forward to yeah keeps me excited thank you so Lynn this has been particularly fun with me because I just feel like we’re always kind of gung-ho we both talked on our way here how we’re both so passionate so I’m really grateful for your heart for your mind for your willingness for what you’re doing in the world I’m really grateful to have you in my life and to be in your life and to share this with you so thank you so much for being here thank you what a blessing what a gift thank you and while we are already at almost an hour of whatever this is going to turn out when we’ve edited it um we want to thank our listening audience we we are going as deep as we can each time but there’s always going to be more we I really appreciate you letting me set such a deep foundation for you because you are as an audience if you’re hanging in there with us you’re willing to slow down a little knowing you can speed up later and I appreciate that very much because all the tools in the world aren’t going to really fix anything for you if you don’t kind of get these mindset ideas so super grateful for you I hope you’ll come and really take an action from this maybe it’s to look in the mirror in the morning and say you’re awesome you’re a rock star I’m so proud of you I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do in the world today today like even if you just take to heart those four core needs and go look on our website and read some of the articles about the four core needs and about what it is to have psychological contracts and psychological safety so I really hope you take a next stop and and sign up to be part of our community thank you so much thank you for listening to Life Works today this podcast has been brought to you by life work system CEO and host Judy Ryan the intent of this podast pod is to provide you with hope and new ideas for Greater Joy in your life and work for more information on our organization and earlier podcast episodes related articles videos and more please visit our website at Lifeworks systems.com be sure to subscribe to our podcast and mailing list we invite you to join us in creating a world in which all people love their lives and where your life works today