TED* Thoughts

Anyone who has traveled on London’s Underground subway has seen the ubiquitous “Mind the Gap” signs.  It is a reminder to stay aware of the gap between the edge of the passenger platform and the opening to the subway car door.  Being mindful of the gap, travelers know to remain aware as they take their step.

There is another gap that calls for our mindfulness – and is the place in which, in the words of The Power of TED*, shift happens.  It is the “choice point.”

This gap has arisen in a couple of conversations over the past several weeks. The first was with Enid Moulder, managing director of the UK’s Harmony Partnership.  The second took place just a few days ago with Donna Zajonc, TED’s director of coaching and practitioner services (and my wife).

In the conversation with Enid, we were exploring how TED helps equip individuals to be mindful when facing a choice point.  She often makes the connection between TED and Stephen R. Covey’s “Proactive Model” and his observation that between stimulus and response there is a gap in which we have the freedom of choice – that is the choice point.

When we experience an unpleasant person, condition or circumstance (the stimulus), we can either react from the Victim Orientation or choose to respond from a Creator Orientation. We can react in one of the roles of the Dreaded Drama Triangle (DDT) ™ of Victim, Persecutor or Rescuer, OR we can make shift happen into the more empowered and resourceful TED* (*The Empowerment Dynamic) ™ roles of Creator, Challenger or Coach.

We have that capacity to choose – if we “mind the gap.”

The challenge is that the gap for choice, I learned from Donna, happens blindingly fast.  She had just returned from one of Portland State University’s classes in Interpersonal Neurobiology – part of a series she is studying and applying to the TED work.  The class topic was on mindfulness.  The instructor cited the research of neurophysiologist Benjamin Libet in the 1980’s that indicates that the gap between stimulus and reaction/response may be as little as .03 seconds (that is 300 milliseconds!).

It is in that blink-of-an-eye that we have the chance to catch ourselves and become aware that we have the freedom to make a choice in that moment.  Upon becoming aware of the opportunity to choose, we can slow down and consciously determine how we will respond.  As a Creator, we must be diligent to mind the gap between stimulus and response before we choose and take our next step.

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“TED* Thoughts” is published weekly [at least most of the time]. It is intended to offer reflections and applications of The Power of TED* in order help facilitate a shift in worldview and relationship dynamics from the Drama Triangle [or the Dreaded Drama Triangle] to The Empowerment Dynamic [TED*].  Please help spread TED* by sharing this “TED* Thoughts” and by contributing your own thoughts by posting a comment.

To the Creator in you!

Those of us in the United States celebrate  the July 4th Independence Day this weekend.  This also brings to mind how TED* supports both our Independence and calls for the opportunity to declare our Interdependence.

Stephen R. Covey, in his now classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, frames his habits along a “maturity continuum” that helps us evolve from a paradigm of Dependence through Independence and, eventually, into Interdependence.

He refers to Dependence as the paradigm of “you.”  You make me feel the way I do.  I depend on you to take care of me or to give me a sense of worth and safety.  Independence is the paradigm of “I.”  I can choose what I want to create.  I can choose my response to the circumstances I find myself facing.  Interdependence is the paradigm of “we.”  We are in this together.  We are more powerful and effective together than alone.

The Power of TED* helps facilitate movement along that continuum.  The Dreaded Dream Triangle (DDT) ™ and its roles of Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer are clearly rooted in the mindset of Dependence.  Those who are addicted to drama depend on the DDT to give them focus and each of the roles are reacting to other.

TED* (*The Empowerment Dynamic) ™ helps us gain a “new center” of Independence by adopting a Creator Orientation from which to live a life focused on purpose, intention and resourcefulness.

As we grow into TED* and develop the capabilities of the Creator, Challenger and Coach roles, they naturally progress into interacting with others and embodying the Interdependent paradigm as we collaborate with other Co-Creators.  As mentioned in the January, 2011 “TED* Letter,” all creating requires some form of interdependence – we create outcomes collaboratively with others in some form of community.

As those in the U.S. celebration the date in which our forebears declared their independence, let us each – not matter our nationality – declare our Interdependence as Co-Creators.

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“TED* Thoughts” is published weekly [at least most of the time]. It is intended to offer reflections and applications of The Power of TED* in order help facilitate a shift in worldview and relationship dynamics from the Drama Triangle [or the Dreaded Drama Triangle] to The Empowerment Dynamic [TED*]. Please help spread TED* by sharing this “TED* Thoughts” and by contributing your own thoughts by posting a comment.

To the Creator in you!

This past week, I published the monthly “TED* Letter” electronic newsletter entitled “Learning Intent: The Key to Effective Challenger.”  Several readers commented on it – including Ceci Miller, my friend and editor/consultant on The Power of TED*.  Ceci sent the following email in which she shares a great preventive practice that helps her relate to others as a Challenger, rather than a Persecutor:

I love this issue of the newsletter…! Have been dancing with Challenger/Persecutor for many years, and really like your suggestions at the end for their ability to encourage constructive change in the future (by re-examining past actions and doing self-inquiry that helps us improve interactions going forward).

I thought it might also be useful to share one way that I practice this now that I’m leading two large administrative teams… It’s a preventative approach: before sending an email to someone whose behavior has been unskillful or counterproductive in a meeting (or in previous email interactions) I look hard to find something constructive they are already doing, that I can encourage, help them to build on, and request more of. Once I find it, it’s easy to put the focus there, rather than on what they did that was counter to their now-obvious positive intention. The results in rapport — and in our ability to work together harmoniously thereafter — are quite magical!

Great Challenger practice, Ceci – thanks!

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“TED* Thoughts” is published weekly [at least most of the time]. It is intended to offer reflections and applications of The Power of TED* in order help facilitate a shift in worldview and relationship dynamics from the Drama Triangle [or the Dreaded Drama Triangle] to The Empowerment Dynamic [TED*]. Please help spread TED* by sharing this “TED* Thoughts” and by contributing your own thoughts by posting a comment.

To the Creator in you!

One of the many pleasures of my work with The Leadership Circle in coaching as part of the University of Notre Dame’s Executive Integral Leadership Program is my cab ride to the airport.  Driver Jean-Paul has become a friend over the years and we talk often about his homeland of Rwanda.  He immigrated to the United States after the 1994 Rwandan 100 day genocide, during which over 800,000 men, women and children were slaughtered – included many members of his family.

This past week, as we were heading to the airport for my flight home, Jean-Paul told me a moving story.  Last month was the 17^th anniversary of the mass killing.  As a recent BBC story on the anniversary began, “Most of the dead were (minority) Tutsis – and most of those who perpetrated the violence were (majority) Hutus,” the two ethnic groups with a long history of violence.

In recognition of the anniversary, Jean-Paul attended a gathering of Rwandans working toward reconciliation between the Hutus and Tutsis.  One of the attendees was the son of Hutu parents.  He was a child at the time of the genocide, so he could have easily claimed that he was neither to blame nor bore any responsibility for what happened.

Instead, he stood and asked the Tutsis in attendance to forgive him for the actions of his parents, who participated in the killing.  As Jean-Paul recounted to me, the man went on to say that, while he had not participated, he had witnessed first-hand an act of genocide.

At one point, during the 100 days, he was in the hospital.  While hospitalized, his teacher came to see him.  Remember, the child was Hutu.  His teacher was Tutsi.  Nevertheless, the teacher wanted to look in on his young student.  While visiting, several Hutus came up from behind and killed him in front of the child.  I am certain this is one of thousands – actually hundreds of thousands – of similar horrific stories.

On the flight home, I reflected on Jean-Paul’s story.

How easy and understandable it would be for the Tutsis at the gathering to react to the young man from a Victim Orientation and its toxic interplay of the Dreaded Drama Triangle (DDT) ™ roles of Victim, Persecutor and Rescuer.

Instead, my experience of Jean-Paul is that he is committed to creating reconciliation.  He has adopted a Creator Orientation and sees the process of reconciliation as necessitating the shift to relationships rooted in TED* (*The Empowerment Dynamic) ™ and its “antidote” roles of Creator, Challenger and Coach.

As the character Ted counsels in The Power of TED*, “(A) possibility presented by The Empowerment Dynamic is forgiveness… Forgiveness is giving up the hope of ever hav­ing a better past. There’s nothing you can do to change the past, but you can choose how you think about what has already happened in your life. You then apply the learning from that experience to the process of creating what you care about.”

Jean-Paul, the young Hutu, and those who gathered were engaged in the act of forgiveness and, even as the tears flowed, were focusing on creating reconciliation.

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“TED* Thoughts” is published weekly [at least most of the time]. It is intended to offer reflections and applications of The Power of TED* in order help facilitate a shift in worldview and relationship dynamics from the Drama Triangle [or the Dreaded Drama Triangle] to The Empowerment Dynamic [TED*]. Please help spread TED* by sharing this “TED* Thoughts” and by contributing your own thoughts by posting a comment.

To the Creator in you!

I have been thinking a lot about health lately – for several reasons:

• Many of my baby boomer generation of friends a facing a range of health challenges, from cancer, to Parkinson’s disease, to obesity, to diabetes – you name it.  Since the first of the year, there have been two entries: “Empowering Healthcare” and “Dis-Ease as a Spiritual Practice

• I just passed my 57^th birthday and see the next age milestone looming on the horizon.

Most importantly, I am currently in the process of co-authoring a book applying The Power of TED* to diabetes as an example of how we can shift our relationship from reacting to our diagnosis as a Persecutor to responding to it as a health Challenger?

Why diabetes?  Because I was diagnosed with Type 2 about 6 years ago.  While I have done a decent job of managing and maintaining it at a relatively stable level (it actually has declined somewhat), I must admit that my basic response has been from the Victim Orientation in which I saw diabetes as a problem to be reacted to.  As I result, I have ridden the all-too-normal rollercoaster of doing the right things, then slacking off, and then doing the right things again, only to slack off yet again.

I have now chosen to get off the rollercoaster!  Instead of being a Victim to diabetes and focusing on what I don’t want, I hereby commit, as a Creator, to shift my focus to creating optimal health – now and for the rest of my life.  Not only is it a declaration for my health, it is an act of integrity – how could I write such a book without walking my talk?

Having so declared, the “twin sisters” of serendipity and synchronicity have shown their faces.  About a month ago, my wife Donna and I learned from a couple of friends about Dr. Wayne Scott Anderson’s Habits of Health program.  What is especially amazing about his work showing up for us at this time is that his process of creating optimal health is built on the foundation of Robert Fritz’s concept of “Structural Tension” – the very same model from which Dynamic Tension in The Power of TED* is derived.

It is as easy – but not at all simple – as choosing optimal health as a fundamental choice; telling the truth about current reality (both what I am doing that supports optimal health and those behaviors and habits that inhibit my manifesting that envisioned outcome”.

I began the process just this week and will be sharing insights from my journey of creating optimal health.  As I have assesses my current reality this past week, one of the BFO’s (Blinding Flash of the Obvious” from Dr A. (as they call him) is that “non-sick” is not the same as healthy.  I have been blesses this past winter to be non-sick, but now is the time to make shift happen from that state of being to optimal health.

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“TED* Thoughts” is published weekly [at least most of the time]. It is intended to offer reflections and applications of The Power of TED* in order help facilitate a shift in worldview and relationship dynamics from the Drama Triangle [or the Dreaded Drama Triangle] to The Empowerment Dynamic [TED*]. Please help spread TED* by sharing this “TED* Thoughts” and by contributing your own thoughts by posting a comment.

To the Creator in you!