The pinkish blue shimmer on the water, the sound of lapping water, the weightless feeling of immersion, birds greeting the day, muscles extending, the water slick on my skin, steam rising, a distant hum of an airplane — a time I feel calm and alive with possibility — centered.

As the world wakes and life begins to happen, returning to this centered place is an internal choice.  Creating a vivid memory of the sights, sounds, and sensations help to bring me back to this center place.

As the days shorten, the pool closes, and the temperature cools, this center place still remains within me at my choosing. When I feel anxious, sad, afraid, or overwhelmed — re-experiencing, my center place opens me to possibility.

What about you? Where is your center place? Please share!

Does this sound like other areas of life?

As I begin this week, this day, and even this moment I am more mindful how in my life I choose to prune out things that don’t fit with what I want.

Open space, a vacuum, fills randomly with whatever pushes its way in.

If a spiral has no intention - it is just a circle. Be mindful of your intentions to Spiral Impact your desires!

What do you need to prune to make room for what you want?

A shoulder injury forced me to alter how I climb stairs at the gym. I lowered my speed 30% so as not to strain my shoulder by pulling myself up with the handrails. This seemed very slow.

I was shocked to see a 30% reduction in my speed only reduced the calories I burned by 1% in the same amount of time. My heart rate was the same as at the higher speed. This intrigued the engineer in me. Then, I remembered the formula:

Work = force x distance

The amount of work done is not a function of speed. While it felt slow to shift to centered* movement, I accomplished just as much.

Center is the new fast in a couple ways

1. Centering creates more awareness and therefore lessens the likelihood of error.
2. Ironically, the more centered you are the faster you can move! Indy cars are a great example.

Remember, the next time you are racing around holding your breath trying to get things done, speed is not a function of work…’center is the new fast!’ Breathe and refocus.

Please share your experiences!

With energy,

Karen Valencic

*Learn more about center beginning on page 59 of Spiral Impact or listen to ‘Strengthen your balance and focus’ CD.  Click here for your copy!

The typical manager spends 25-40% of his or her time dealing with workplace conflict (Washington Business Journal, May 2005). This translates to 1-2 days a week. Finding ways to re-capture this time for something creative makes good business sense. How much money does 1-2 days of a manager’s time cost in your organization? What about other indirect costs: interrupted work, loss of sleep, time spent talking about it, absenteeism, and employee distraction? Can you afford this?

The first step is to understand conflict. Conflict comes from the root words: strike together. Take your fist and push it against your other fist or some other object - this is conflict. When you feel this tension you have a choice: to keep pushing long or hard and be destructive or recognize the tension and make a choice to move with it and influence what happens next. One choice increases struggle and destruction; the other creates movement and solutions.

Our current economic climate is pushing many people and organizations. Those who are succeeding recognize the push and move with it in a variety of ways. This is a time when innovation and creativity are a must for survival. Innovation requires conflict and our performance peaks when we are challenged. Without the initial push or tension we don’t grow because there is no desire to change things. Learning to push ‘just right’ is the key to Using Conflict Creatively.

In the business world the words conflict management are frequently used. This makes me shutter! Managing conflict is like trying to manage children or spouses. You can manage your money or production line, not conflict. Things are managed; people are lead. What is needed is to learn how to lead creatively through conflict. This requires personal development and awareness; there are no short cuts.

Conflict is a mind/body/spirit phenomenon. As I’ve worked, consciously, with conflict for almost 2 decades I have found sharing tools that are visual, tactile and auditory provide for the best learning transfer to begin to understand conflict and then use it for innovation.

A spiral is the most powerful tool for transforming conflict. When that initial push happens learn to spiral with rather than pushing against creates almost automatic influence and diffusion. The analogy of using a hammer and nail versus a screwdriver and screw illustrates this beautifully. A hammer requires a focused large force. If it doesn’t hit its target - someone gets hurt. Where a screwdriver and screw requires less force, is more stable, and ultimately gives you a better long term result. Applied to conflict, I call this Spiral Impact.

Let’s not make conflict out to be a villain! Learn to understand conflict, use it creatively and you will have an endless opportunity to innovate.
Karen Valencic
President, Spiral Impact
Copyright 2010

But the toughest kind of wall is made of a thousand little things; I call it the invisible wall. This wall is often made up of our reactions to: Slow responses, no response, too much information, not enough information, no acknowledgement or thank you, balls dropped, looks, snappy comments, undefined glances, unwanted-unanswered e-mails, misunderstandings, understandings, assumptions to name just a few.

Brick walls separate physical things.

Invisible walls separate our spirits.

A big hammer can tear down a brick wall.

It takes something more powerful to tear down an invisible wall. It takes a spiral to impact this wall: Becoming the calm eye, shifting our position for understanding and connection, sharing stories, sharing values, agreeing on a common on a credo of how to be together, and knowing who we aspire to be.

To live united, this is what is required.

• He will never change.
• This always happens.
• I am not good at this.

In the recent Tiger Woods commercial, the questions Tiger Woods’ dad asks are fantastic questions:

• What was your thinking?
• How do you feel about it?
• And, what did you learn?

Any conflict you have with another can be transformed through asking questions, of course you’ve got to be ‘centered’ and authentic enough to prompt the person to answer and hear what they have to say! Read : http://www.karenvalencic.com/blog/one-crucial-thing-for-excelling

Feel stuck, have a conflict? Turn your statements about it into questions and acknowledgements. This Spirals or turns you toward solutions.

This early April morning I walked out the front door and low and behold my ferns had grown at least 10 inches overnight! Wow!

Where’s the connection?

The right conditions facilitate rapid growth. Whether you are person or a plant - you’ve got to have the right conditions.

What are the right conditions? I believe:

* A clear intention or desire
* A calm yet energized presence
* Support and encouragement
* Knowledge or strategy

Do you have these elements in your life? If you lead people, do you provide this for your employees? What about your children?

Thank you Coach Brad Stevens for showing us what it is to lead without yelling and throwing things; thank you mother nature for the right rain, sun and protection from pests for my plants!

With calm energy!

Karen

Karen Valencic

Hitting a communication ‘pothole’ can also shake a person up.  Potholes are a void begging to be filled, in the road or in communication.   You know what I mean…someone doesn’t return your call or fill a request.  He or she seems to disappear; you are left in the land of ‘not knowing,’ a void of information.

In the void of communication, what do you fill that ‘pothole’ with?

Do you assume it is about you?  That somehow you aren’t worthy?
Alice thought her proposal for work was accepted; dates were even discussed.  However, when she tried to confirm she received no response.  She assumed the project wasn’t going to happen. In the end, she learned her client thought they were confirmed.  He had less of a need for communication.

Do you assume the worst?  Something has happened to the person?
Tracy, your child, is out late and not answering his cell phone.  Need I say more?

Do you trust when the time is right you’ll have your response?
David is a busy executive. Over the years he’s learned when the time is right, he will hear from the person, just on time, although, it may not be his preferred time.

The astute communicator practices ‘pothole’ prevention by learning peoples’ preferences for communication.   Given there are so many options to deliver communication, I have found it surprising what some people prefer and resent!  Assuming anything is a big mistake.

• Nancy, a baby boomer, informed me she feels resentful when someone phones her; it takes too much time to return a call
• Eric, another baby boomer, informed me he primarily communicates on Facebook! E-mail is too slow for him
• My 20 something daughters prefer texting
• Jason, a Gen Xer business owner, prefers Linked-In
• My mother likes me to call her on Sunday mornings; it is a ritual
  

The bottom-line is:  ask people how and when is the best way to communicate with them.

Yet, truly at the bottom of a pothole…

no communication… is communication.

It says, “This is not the most important thing to me right now. ”

What are your thoughts?

Winter Olympics in particular, feels like the athletes unleash all they’ve got with the help of gravity. WOW!

Okay, Apolo is my favorite. This year is no exception. Not only is he very easy on the eyes. I love his philosophy. He seems very aiki like to me! Short track speed skating is a pretty wild sport. A few things I’ve heard him say that really apply to any sport or endeavor:

1. Did I do everything I could do today to do my very best?

2. Always be calm and watch for an ‘opening’ to appear.

3. Leave it on the ice.

A great message and certainly in line with “keep moving and bend your knees.” You’ll have to read my book to learn more!

First of all, having been involved in the auto industry I’ve always been fascinated how well cars work when you consider how many people and processes all have to go ‘right’ when assembling a car. Thousands of people have some sort of input. The fact they actually run when they come off the assembly line is somewhat of a miracle.

‘Stuff’ happens and the more people involved the more likely more ’stuff’ happens.

When I was an automotive engineer we did something called DFME - Design Failure Mode Analysis. We looked at every dimension on every part and explored all possible problems if that dimension was not met. If something wasn’t right in manufacturing it was documented. We would never put something out that was suspect of a problem that would cause failure of a safety item. THAT WAS 25 YEARS AGO!

Toyota set a new standard since my involvement. There have been many books written to their quality standards and processes.

What happened?

I believe a combination of two things:

1. Toyota’s intention changed - their intention became one of world dominance…not the highest quality. Starbucks made a similar shift and found themselves in a hole.

2. Not willing to be transparent. When accidents happen; when people are dying the only right thing to do is be transparent immediately.

As a student of a traditional Japanese martial art…I am disappointed at the current culture of Toyota. Just move forward! Be transparent…don’t pretend to be perfect.

And that is all I have to say. Karen

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