CEO SPECIAL ................You've reached the top! Now what?

You've reached the top! Now what?





WHY DO SO MANY AMBITIOUS AND TALENTED EXECUTIVES PLATEAU, BURN OUT, AND AT TIMES REGRESS ONCE THEY "REACH THE TOP"?

Top executives love the challenges, risks, and thrills of doing what others have not done-envisioning new horizons, exploring the unknown, moving to the next peak and eventually reaching the top.Then, why do so many of them plateau, burn out, and at times regress once they “reach the top“ of whatever ladder, mountain or organisational structure they've been climbing?
My answer, based on both research and reflection, is that while they tend to be great talkers (because they continually pitch their visions, strategies, products and services to investors, banks, employees, customers, clients, and partners), they may plateau when it comes to connecting deeply with others.

EXPAND YOUR CONNECTING PROFILE

With the right digital tools, we can now connect 24x7 from anywhere in the world at any time, but it's not enough to have the tools to connect. We also need the wisdom to connect. We need Conversational Intelligence® (CIQ), a framework for knowing which conversations trigger our lower-level brain activity, such as primitive instincts for fight, flight, freeze and appeasement, versus what sparks higher-level brain activity, such as trust, integrity, strategic thinking, empathy, and capability to process complex situations.The more we see how much of our brain is devoted to social connection, the more we realise how connecting with others in healthy and productive ways becomes vital for our mutual success in teams and organisations.

PROBLEM: WHAT INHIBITS HEALTHY CONNECTIONS?

Having communication blind spots.

Sadly, I see many leaders bomb in critical meetings and situations because of low C-IQ: they don't speak to influence and thus, fail to connect. People with high C-IQ activate their audience's prefrontal cortex, a section of the brain that enables trust and good judgment. People with low CIQ engage the lower brain, where fear and distrust reside.

Talking past each other .

Breakdowns happen when people talk past each other, not with each other. Once you recognise your conversational blind spots, you can boost your C-IQ by identifying what is going wrong in conversations and situations and flip the switch in your brain and others' brains to get communications back on a productive and neural path.

Not seeing beyond your vision.

The tough road of leadership and entrepreneurship demands total belief in the enterprise and its vision. Unfortunately, having total belief can blind you to the need to see beyond your vision and gain buy-in from diverse constituents, or listen to their push back if they don't agree at first.

Not minding the gap.

To bridge blind spots, you need to mind the gap and step into your conversation partner's world, shift from talking about yourself and your solutions, and start co-creating by focusing on shared success.This involves identifying what the people in the loop want from you.

SOLUTION: CO-CREATING CONVERSATIONS

Co-creating conversations enables you to co-create the future.This is not about a quick fix or a new policy, lecturing or tell­sell­yell; it's about navigating with others in and out of scenarios from many perspectives. Such conversations create healthy practices and rituals for how work gets done inside the culture.They enable us to create a movie screen on which to project scenarios for the future so we can explore them and choose the best paths.

As we understand others' perspectives, we can form a WEcentric rather than an I-centric view of the future. As we create the conversational space for change, we reduce fears and threats and help people find their place in the change process.We can then breathe in a coherent, collaborative way.To breathe means to aspire.When we are calm and connected to others during change, our aspirations become greater and our capabilities increase.

-Judith E Glaser is CEO of Benchmark Communications, Inc, chairman of The Creating WE Institute, consultant to Fortune 500 Companies, and author of four bestselling business books

TAS10JUN15