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Fairy Tales

Guest post by: Sylvia Lafair

Article Overview: One of my clients told me the following story: "we were sitting in a meeting and it was, to say the least, very tense. The big boss was angry with her leadership team. She wanted the finished proposal for a major, big, gargantuan business deal finished before the sun set that day, right after the meeting. Everyone took a breath and looked down at the table. They all knew it was impossible. The stats had not been delivered yet and there was no way it could be done and done right by early evening, even by late that night.

Fairy Tales

One of my clients told me the following story: "we were sitting in a meeting and it was, to say the least, very tense. The big boss was angry with her leadership team. She wanted the finished proposal for a major, big, gargantuan business deal finished before the sun set that day, right after the meeting. Everyone took a breath and looked down at the table. They all knew it was impossible. The stats had not been delivered yet and there was no way it could be done and done right by early evening, even by late that night.

She, the big boss, was a tyrant at least that is how she was viewed. No one ever second guessed her or disagreed with her. She was a great delegator and expected what she said to be honored and put before all other work.

So, with all the fear and anxiety in the room someone took a chance; with a smirky, silly smile, in a scratchy, soprano voice he said "Okay I get it. You want us to spin straw into gold before sunrise or..." he took a moment for dramatic effect "Or.....or.....or we die."

There were chuckles and guffaws and some coughing and throat clearing. It was funny, it had a tinge of truth, and it relieved the tension, at least for the moment.

Big boss peered over her black and blue bifocals and without missing a beat said "You got it Bruce." With that she walked out of the room and expected them to finish their work before the sun would rise the next morning, or......

Bruce got some pats on the back as the team decided to figure out how to make the impossible possible. His clowning had definitely helped clear the air. As an extrovert, he had the skill to divert the situation from one of hopelessness to a can do situation."

In this case Bruce was a hero. Often however, the jokes of the office clown cause groaning and embarrassment. There is a fine line between true humor and stupid stuff. Most firms write off jokesters as pubescent employees, Bozos, smart-asses, motor-mouths. Yet, having a sense of humor is important and research indicates that laughing benefits the immune system and activates endorphins, the good stuff that makes us feel more contented.

When office clowns transform to humorists they provide a much needed service that often gets promotion after promotion. In this day of excessive strength and tension we all need to find ways to have a good laugh at work, one that includes and is not at the expense of our colleagues.

In case you wonder what happened with the leadership team. They went home pretty exhausted at ten that evening with the work not completed. Big boss received an email that it would be done the following evening by dinner time, that is, if she would spare them their lives just one more day.

Her response surprised them. She acknowledged their stamina and determination and the next evening handed each one a book of fairy tales for their kids with a note to check out page 17 where the story of Rumplestiltskin was circled with a smiley face.

Even Big boss began to change and lighten up. So, adding some humor to alleviate tension can be a good thing. You may even get a book to read to your kids as an added bonus. So take the time to learn about the patterns in the workplace and find ways to change yours to ones that will make you more emotionally intelligence.

Emotional intelligence requires understanding ingrained relationship and communication patterns. The more you can become enlightened about the invisible world behind behavior and can translate this into actual policies needless personnel crises and conflict will be averted.

I am a PHD psychologist whose book "Don't Bring It to Work" (Jossey Bass) explores the costly illusion that we are meant to be different at work and at home. In fact, this pretend separation is what breeds workplace conflict, office politics, lawsuits, and lost productivity.

When stress hits the hot button we all revert to behaviors we learned in our original organization the family. Here we learned about security and survival and were hard wired with beliefs about fairness, favoritism, collaboration, collusion, and the like. Without awareness we bring these now invisible patterns into our present organization at work.

Using the OUT Technique to Observe, Understand, and Transform the 13 most common patterns at work (avoider, martyr, persecutor, victim, etc.) is a quick and effective solution to the unavoidable upsets that happen in every workplace. This creates a new freedom from the relationship hell of negative pattern repetition that infects the boardroom, the meeting room, and the training room.

Becoming Pattern Aware is the work of 21st Century leaders and is an important aspect of emotional intelligence.

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Article Tags: business deal, Dont Bring It to Work, patterns, proposal, stress



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In 2000, with the help and encouragement of her brother, she dusted off that old business plan and set out to bring her and Bion's dream to life. Within weeks she had found her first location, and from that point on she never looked back. Camp Bow Wow has now sold more than 205 franchises, 125 of which will be open by the end of the year. It is the premier upscale doggy day care and boarding company, and is expected to generate $18 million in systemwide sales in 2008. What we learned from Heidi: To persevere and never lose sight of your dreams. Heidi was a young widow who tried financial consulting, pharmaceutical sales, and launching a high-end baby-bedding catalog before coming full circle to find success with the idea that she'd loved all along. Not Just Fun and Games "A lot of people come into this business thinking how fun it's going to be to hang out with dogs all day. But we are taking care of people's furry children, all day and night, 365 days a year! 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