Air Cover: Getting Support from the Big Boss

Scenario: You need to do something that you just know a coworker, Mary, is not going to like. She'll dislike it so much, she'll likely go over your head to to complain about it.

So how can you increase the probability that you'll get the 'air cover' and support you need from the Big Boss?

By bringing your boss up-to-speed before you roll out your plan so s/he can comfortably say, "Yes, I know of, and approved, the approach taken."

Can't get your boss to approve your plan exactly as is? Then just tweak it a bit so that you can.

Then, play it out: Tell Mary. Let her complain to your boss's boss. (You can't stop her, anyway.) Watch as your boss's boss asks your boss, "What's this all about?" Then, see how:

• If your boss can speak intelligently about your plan, you'll likely be supported by the Big Boss; and
• If your boss cannot speak intelligently about your plan, you'll likely get overruled.

It's not just about how good your idea is; it's about how well your boss supports it when it's ultimately challenged.

End of story. Try it yourself and see.

The Five (or Six) Truths About Fear

Susan Jeffers, in her ground-breaking book, Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway, identified five basic truths about fear^a:

1. The fear will never go away as long as I continue to grow.
2. The only way to get rid of the fear of doing something is to go out … and do it.
3. The only way to feel better about myself is to go out … and do it.
4. Not only am I going to experience fear whenever I'm on unfamiliar territory, but so is everyone else.
5. Pushing through fear is less frightening than living with the underlying fear that comes from a feeling of helplessness.

"By now you've gotten the picture," writes Dr. Jeffers. "We can't escape fear. We can only transform it into a companion that accompanies us in all our exciting adventures ... Some people have told me they are never afraid, but when I question them, they reveal that we are just differing on semantics. Yes, they feel nervous or anxious sometimes - they simply never labeled it as fear."

Know, though, that whether you label it as fear, or not:

Unfamiliarity with HOW to do something is not the same as Inability TO do something.

So, the next time you find yourself "feeling the fear", or feeling nervous, or anxious, or whatever it is you feel when you're in an unfamiliar space ... STOP ... and remind yourself that just because you haven't done this particular thing before, it does not mean you're incapable of doing it (or learning to do it).

This simple realization is central to all personal / professional growth ... all relationship growth ... all leadership growth ...all life growth ... all everything growth.

So I want to add a 6^th Truth of Fear to the list:

6. Our ability to push through fear has far less to do with the difficulty of a given situation - real or imagined - than it does with our readiness to learn and grow, regardless of circumstance.

As such, it seems to me that fear can be recast as a basic "invitation to learn", rather than an inhibitor of learning.

Ha! I guess you could say that while "opportunity knocks but once," fear rings the bell again and again and again - until you accept its invitation to come out and play!

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^aTaken from Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway^®, Susan Jeffers, Ph.D. Copyright ©1987-2008 Susan Jeffers, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

Archived Topic: Fear

For reference purposes, here are some additional blog posts about "FEAR" from the archives of GottaGettaBlog! and the NotJustTalk! newsletter that were not yet linked with the category label "fear":

• 15 Networking Do's
• Authentically Munch
• Career Day Comments
• Choosing to Choose
• Coaching Next Level Leaders
• Five Keys to Pushing Past Fear
• Hope and Help for Your Nerves
• How to Succeed Like a Workaholic
• improv wisdom
• Taking it Off-Line
• The Real Reason People Don't Change
• The Six Habits of Highly Defective People
• The Wisdom of Letting Go

Stupid Questions and What Happens Next

"There's no such thing as a stupid question."

Wrong. There are all sorts of stupid questions. We hear them every day. We ask them every day. We label them as such every day. And life, amazingly, goes on.

But whether a question is considered stupid or not is not really the issue. What matters more - much more - than the caliber of the question, is what you do with the answer.

If the answer has you (and everyone else in the room) lapse into silence, it probably wasn't a question worth asking - at least not at this particular time, in this particular place, or to this particular person.

If the answer has you say something like, "Well if that's the case, then ....", or "So it logically follows that...", or has you offer up some insightful inference that helps move the conversation meaningfully forward, then it's GOOD you asked your stupid question - GOOD for everyone!

And if the answer has someone else say something like, "Well if that's the case, then ....", or "So it logically follows that...", or has them offer up some insightful inference that helps move the conversation meaningfully forward, then it's REALLY GOOD you asked your stupid question - REALLY GOOD for everyone!

That said, the best way to avoid the harsh glare - and potential embarrassment - from asking a stupid question is to ask it with the intention of applying the answer (whatever it is) in an absolutely brilliant, or at least quasi-intelligent, way. Fear not how you'll do that, just set the intention to do that ... and proceed accordingly.

Not sure how to do that? Not sure how you'd apply the answer (whatever it is) in an absolutely brilliant, or at least quasi-intelligent, way? Then maybe it's a stupid question that's better to not ask at this particular time, in this particular place, or to this particular person.

And what if you're asked a stupid question? Two things on that:

• Thing One: Please, puleeeeeze, don't say, "There's no such thing as a stupid question!" (Sorry, pet peeve of mine.)
• Thing Two: Answer the question thoughtfully and immediately follow-up with a stupid question of your own - something like, "So what can you infer from my answer?"

From (totally) Perfect to (merely) Excellent

I work a lot with executives who relish their perfectionism - and why not, it's what, in large part, got them promoted to be executives.

To help them 're-frame' how they think about their work, I have them do a little exercise. First, I have them draw a line from left to right, with arrows on each end; a continuum, if you will:

On it, I then have them put a big A on the far left and label it (inescapably) Awful; and a big P on the far right and label it (totally) Perfect. Like this, perhaps:

I then ask where on the line they'd put an E,which stands for (merely) Excellent - still excellent, but just barely so.

E

If you do this exercise yourself, be sure to notice that wherever you put your E - it's likely somewhat left of P, but still considerably to the right of A. That is, meaningfully less than (totally) Perfect, but still nowhere near (inescapably) Awful.

My challenge to them - and to you - is to spend the next two weeks operating in the E space - wherever it's located - to see what that's like.

If you do, you'll likely find, as they do, that not one person (excepting yourself) will notice any decrease in your performance whatsoever. And, by allowing yourself to be just (merely) Excellent you'll free up literally hours of time in your workweek - and at home - that you can then use to complete several other things in a (merely) Excellent way AND still have time to clean up your overflowing email inbox already, for crying out loud!

It's a fun little experiment, one that I invite you to try.

And what if someone becomes dissatisfied with your (merely) Excellent performance? Don't worry. For now, just apologize and indulge yourself in making things (totally) Perfect.

It'll still be the exception, rather than the rule.

Fear 303: A Revised Model of Fear

Last month I forwarded a model - Fear 101 - to explain how many people conceptualize fear. As you may recall, there was an inner core of Fearlessness, surrounded by a ring of Courageousness, encapsulated in a vast Infinity and Beyond called, The Land of Fear.

Since then, I've received numerous emails and phone calls from people telling me that that's exactly how they envision fear, too. Very gratifying, indeed.

The Next Step in the process, then, was for me was to figure out how to re-frame fear so that it would not be so large-and-in-charge as it is in the Fear 101 model. The “aha moment” came once I was ready to accept the possibility that Infinity and Beyond was just too big and unlimited a space for fear to claim so unilaterally. It was only then that I realized that Infinity and Beyond was not, ipso facto, the Land of Fear – it was simply a Benign Unknown.

What a wonderful shift!

The resultant upgrade, dubbed Fear 303, looks and works as such:

Starting at the back of the pack is this huge Benign Unknown stretching out in most directions. Within it (and bubbling out of it in places) is this thing called Opportunity.

So that we're clear, Opportunity is a good thing.

Next, as the blue bubble indicates, our natural response to Opportunity is often Fearlessness. This, too, is a good thing, as Fearlessness often empowers us to positively leverage Opportunity.

For sticklers to detail, it should be noted that the Fear 303 model recognizes that, sometimes, Fearlessness splashes out past Opportunity and into other areas of the Benign Unknown that may neither be opportunities, nor so benign. But that's just the way things are, sometimes, right? (I failed to recognize that in Fear 202, which is why I didn't post it between 101 and 303.)

So here’s where I think it gets nice and juicy: Instead of allowing Fear to "own" all of Infinity and Beyond, Fear is now relegated to a small little cloud in the lower right-hand corner of the diagram. Like Fearlessness, Fear also overlays Opportunity - some opportunities do, indeed, frighten us - and parts of Fear splash out, as well, into the Benign Unknown, and into parts of the Unknown that may not be benign. That really is the way things are, sometimes, right?!

But in the Fear 303 model, Fear is clearly a whole lot less featured – especially when you consider how Fear is mostly covered by Courageousness in service to Opportunity.

Sure, sometimes Fear still prevents us from moving forward, but it does so to a considerably lesser extent than in Fear 101. Indeed, once we recognize that Fear does not have to be our default reaction to the Unknown, it is majorly dis-empowered and has significantly less automatic say-so over how we react to what's going on around us. We are at choice.

That feels very motivating (and plausible) to me. How does it feel to you?

Fear 101: A Model

I've been talking to a number of people about fear lately and decided to diagram what a prevailing mental model is for many with respect to fear:

As you see, the inner core represents one's fearlessness – that is the place where we have no fear. For some this is a very big place; for others it can be fairly small. As they say, individual results may vary.

Surrounding this inner core is a ring of courageousness – the place where, as Susan Jeffers^a would say, we are willing to "feel the fear and do it, anyway."

As with the fearlessness core, the courageousness ring is a very big place for some, and a relatively small place for others. Too, and this is something you've likely already experienced yourselves, the actual size of these two areas will vary greatly depending on circumstance, mood, comfort level, and a variety of other variables.

Surrounding all of that – and this was the real light bulb realization for me, as it may be for you – is a veritable Infinity and Beyond ... of fear. Yes, for many people, anything outside of what they're already fearless - or willing to be courageous - about, is a never ending Land of Fear.

Of course, not everyone looks at it this way - although a surprising number of people really do. (And to a certain extent, you might, too, if you're being really honest with yourself.) So perhaps you can appreciate that I mean no disrespect when I say,

This is hardly a Model for Champions!

What it is, though, is a pretty frightening diagram. Scary to even look at, actually, with its big, hairy, eyeball staring back like that. Remember that Far Side cartoon – “Warning: Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear” and all you see is one big, fat, blood-shot, monster’s eyeball?! Like that, don't you think?!

Although that may just be the fear talking!

But, when we consider that virtually everything outside of our fearlessness and courageousness zones is in the Land of Fear, it's no wonder why feelings of fear, worry, and doubt can seem so incessant. After all, Infinity and Beyond, by it's very definition, is a pretty big place!

Okay, so this said,the Next Step is to figure out how to re-frame our model so that fear is not so featured as the kingpin of the whole thing.

Stay tuned!

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^a Taken from Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway^®, Susan Jeffers, Ph.D. Copyright ©1987-2008 Susan Jeffers, Ph.D. All rights reserved.