There are three parts to the Rules of Non-Engagement: Before, During and After.   In the last post we looked at how to prepare yourself before the family event. In the next few posts we will look at what you can do in the “during” phase.

DURING STAGE:

- Supporting your energy

Marta told us:

“My mom loves to make cookies and cakes, and I love to eat them. Problem is,all that sugar gives me headaches and makes me cranky.And when I’m cranky, Mom and I have problems. So I’ve told her that the only time I’m going to eat the fun food is at night, so I can be fun for her to be with all day long.”

Juanita told us:

“I take naps in the afternoon, usually when my dad turns on the TV to watch sports. I used to sit around all day hating the sound of the TV and wishing I could be somewhere else, but not anymore! I tell my parents that taking naps is part of my health regime, and they not only accepted the idea, but my mom liked it so much that she does the same during my visits. Dad gets to watch sports in peace, and both Mom and I feel refreshed when dinner time rolls around. It’s been great for everyone.”

- Remove some Stress

If you can relieve a relative of just a little of their stress, your good deed will come back to you as an grateful family member who is easier for you to deal with.

Darren told us:

“My mother gets stressed when things don’t seem to be getting done or she’s worried about something.This has gotten worse over the years as she has aged, because she can’t do as much cleaning as she used to. So we do things for her, and turn clean-up time into a family activity. We might say, “Come on kids, let’s go outside and rake some leaves!” If she expresses wor- ries about finances, I get on the Internet and do some research for informa- tion on refinancing.Anything she expresses worry or concern about is an opportunity for me to lower her stress load.The result is that instead of a stressed-out and worried mother when we visit, I get to enjoy her company.”

Fred writes:

“My dad-in-law is kind of a dud, and being a dud around company drives my mother-in-law crazy. So I try to engage him in things, take him out for a game of golf, invite him to come with me for a run to the store, anything that gets him away from her and gives her a break. She’s a lot happier when we visit now.”

Tune in over the next few days for more and check out the resources at: DealingWithRelatives.com

I recently did an interview with Woman’s World about preparing for the holidays, (read “Relatives!”). I reviewed some of the many interviews we conducted when writing the Dealing With Relatives book. Over the next few weeks I will share some of my favorites so you can be prepared.

The first is called “The Rules of Non-Engagement”.  There are three phases, before, during and after. In today’s blog we will look at the “before” phase.

THE BEFORE STAGE

- Prepare yourself

A mantra to maintain perspective:

A good friend of mine, just before ringing the doorbell turns to his wife and says, “Just visiting.”

A couple of sisters prevent being pulled into their Mom’s inane conversations with the mantra, “She’s just making conversation.”

Someone else told me they put a Red dot on watch on the hour they are leaving. To maintain perspective he just has to glance at his watch.

- Seek allies, other family members who are supportive and plan together.

Make contact with other family members with whom you have a good relationship and set up signals to help each other bail from a conversation or distract.

- Mentally practice what you will do with tough conversations or criticism.

Here is my advice.

1. Acknowledge some positive intent.

2. Be clear about your intent

3. Schedule.

i.e.: “I appreciate your openness in sharing the intimate details of your new love, however this might not be the place with the kids. Let’s talk about it later.”

Criticism

1. Acknowledge positive intent

2. Change the subject

Statement: “Looks like you put on a little weight since last year.”

1. “Thank you for caring about my well being.” (then change subject).

Tune in tomorrow for more and check out the resources at: DealingWithRelatives.com

Everyone can use more time. The truth of it is, there is no time. There is only right here and “Now.” When you woke up it was “Now.” As you read this it is “Now.” And in an hour it will still be “Now.” In each precious moment of Now many things will ask for your attention. They will not all fit in the here and now. What you choose to allow in your Now quickly becomes your past. Success and fulfillment is making choices in your Now Moments that are based on your highest priorities.

To create more time in your life the first step is finding out what you are “saying Yes to” in the Now moment. Because every time you are saying “Yes” to something in the here and now, you are also saying “No” to a whole lot more.

Without knowing your specific situation, I would say one of the two most important action steps that can be taken to be more organized and effective are clarifying values and doing a time log.

Download the complete Time Log PDF article here.

Download a Time Log spreadsheet here.

MyEvent Log, an iPhone app that you can use to do a time log.

I was asked recently, “HR people struggle with the concept of Culture at a company. How do you define it?

As co-author of the book Dealing With People You Can’t Stand, How To Bring Out The Best In People At Their Worst, (Brinkman & Kirschner, McGraw-Hill, 1994, 2003, 2011). I tend to view culture in an organization as the behaviors both good and bad that are considered acceptable and verboten.

For example, when I did programs for Chevron, they told me they have a term called the “Chevron Yes”. What that means is you are pleasant and agreeable on the surface but that doesn’t mean you agree or follow through.

When I would do seminars as part of IBM’s leadership series and talk about the Grenade tantrum, consistently half the IBM’ers in the room would say “I can imagine somebody doing the tantrum at work.” While the other half of the room would say, “Oh yes they do!” The difference was the half but couldn’t imagine it were IBM’ers who were always at IBM. The half that said “Yes they do”, were IBM’ers who get sent to someone else’s facility. As they discussed their corporate culture they realized grenade tantrum was not tolerated. However, they admitted that Tank (attack) and Know-it-all run free as protected species.

I once did a seminar for aerospace firm that was designing planes. They had a lot of engineers on the job who when at work must be in a mode of Get it Right / Perfection. The only problem with that is when in a perfectionist mode you can study things from now till the cows come home and never get it done. What the organization learned to do is you hire a very controlling manager to ride herd on those engineers and make sure the project also gets done. However, in their case it went too far because management by Tank attack was considered an acceptable leadership strategy and even promoted.

I did a program for a software company in the Seattle area (not the evil Empire). They realized they had hiring practices that effectively weeded out people who needed control or attention at work and pulled in people like to get along and get it right at work. This was a big “Aha” for them about their culture. On the upside “No wonder we’re one big happy family and we’re very meticulous about our work.” (Get Along and Get it Right). But on the downside they realized, “No wonder it’s a major miracle to get a decision made in the company.” That’s because everyone was either waiting for consensus (Get along) or studying it in further detail (Get it right).

So I would does not I would define the culture of an organization as the behaviors both good and bad that are accepted and unaccepted.

Negativity or The No Person is one of the ten behavioral types we described in our book, Dealing With People You Can’t Stand, How To Bring Out The Best In People At Their Worst (Brinkman & Kirshner, McGraw-Hill, 1994, 2003, 2011).

Negativity and its first cousin Whining are particularly insidious in an organization. That’s because those behaviors tend to spread like the flu through a team and before you know it, everyone is doing it. Even worse, it can become a team habit.

The difference between whining and negativity is whining is a feeling of being helpless, the victim of people, circumstances, or ironically the present circumstances not measuring up to their own high standard of perfection.

Whereas negativity is hopeless. They have given up in the face of the same thing. In fact negativity is really fossilized whining, it goes on and on and on and finally they say, “what’s the use why bother.”

When people get negative they have all the sureness and arrogance of a Know-it-all seduced by the dark side of the force.

The first thing to do is knowing what not to do. Do not bother trying to tell them it’s not so bad or offer a solution. That causes them to go deeper into their quicksand of how bad it is. This is called a polarity response. Two-year-olds and teenagers can have a polarity response as a developmental phase. And when people are negative they have polarity. (Interestingly enough when people are whiny they do not have polarity.)

So if you want to have a little fun and mess with their head then jump into their quicksand with them and playfully start splashing around saying, “You’re right, it’s hopeless, why bother, nothing will work, we might as well just end it all right now.” And they’ll respond with, “Well you’re right but all we have to do is this…” Like magic they will talk solutions to you.

Another thing you can do with negativity is harness it for the greater good. I remember a woman telling me about her husband Bob who was terribly negative, always what’s wrong, nothing ever right. She said the Cub Scouts are planning a trip to Washington DC and the organizers wondered if anything go wrong so they decided to invite her husband Bob to a planning meeting.

Sure enough Bob ripped the trip apart in generalizations but as they kept asking questions they got him to be more and more specific. Then they said, “Thanks a lot Bob, see later,” and sorted for themselves what was an exaggeration and what should be attended to. This is called giving yourself an attitude adjustment by not letting the negative person be a wet blanket as well as using them as a resource.

For more click on the “Whining/Negativity” category on the left.

And certainly the book “People You Can’t Stand…” will also be a useful resource: http://www.rickbrinkman.com/store/books/dpcs.shtml

It is also available in audio book: http://rickbrinkman.com/store/audio/dpcsAUDIO.shtml or as a download at the iTunes store or at Audible.com.

I presented to 1600 people at the American Medical Directors Association recently. One of the doctors came up to me and shared an expression I want to share with you:

In life pain is inevitable.

Misery is optional.

Those of you who receive my e-article series have seen the article on de-cluttering and how it can free your energy and give you back more time. Here is a tip sent in by a reader of how she preserves memories without the clutter.

“I read the article on De-Clutter. I was amazed that most of what you suggested I have already been doing through the year’s. Before giving anything away that has been of sentimental value or an item that had a special purpose in my life, I take a photograph of the item, let it go and place the photo in an album. Months or year’s later visiting the albums, I get much joy looking at “things” that were a part of my life during that period.”  Barbara Cumberland, Pinehurst, N.C.

If you do not receive the article series you can subscribe to it here.

I was recently interviewed by Her Campus for tips to deal with “senior freakout.” Meaning college life is over and you have to join the real world.

The process I suggest is valid for anyone dealing with anything. It’s about how to control your reactions and put yourself in the state of being you need to be successful with whatever you are dealing with.

You can access the article here.

I was recently asked what the top 5 mistakes managers make. I think they all relate to meetings.

I ask you, how much of your time in meetings is really well used given the other priorities. My brother-in-law told me recently he spends the whole Monday in meetings and does absolutely nothing that brings revenue to the company or serves the customer.

So I would say the top 5 mistakes managers make all relate to letting meetings run them, instead of them running meetings.

1- Questioning the necessity of meetings that have been around forever. When people are at a meeting they are not doing a million other things. Time/Benefit of bringing people together must always be questioned.

2- No speaking order at a meeting. You need a speaking order otherwise the assertive personalities will dominate and the passive people drop out. Your eyes see from two different points of view and when your brain puts them together you see there dimensions. To have holographic thinking at a meeting requires everyone’s participation.

3- No time limit for speaking at a meeting. A time limit needs to be established for any one moment addressing the group. Two minutes at the most. Otherwise some people will go on and on and on saying what they already said.

4- No visual recording of people’s thoughts. Visual means you can see it. Everyone’s point when speaking should be recorded on a flip chart or computer hooked up to a monitor. The difference between visual communication and auditory is visual remains over time and you can see totality.

5- No agenda. Everyone needs to know the agenda and each agenda item should tell the participant what is expected of them.

For more on this subscribe to my articles and the first two you will immediately receive are: “The Meeting Magic Process” and “The Art of the Agenda”. You can get those here: http://rickbrinkman.com/enews/index.shtml

Also for tips specifically related to conference calls I refer you here: http://rickbrinkman.com/blog/category/organization/meetings/

I recently was interviewed by Woman’s World magazine on Dealing with Relatives. I believe the article is in the current issue. Here is a link to access a PDF version or simply click on the graphic.

But wait there’s more!!!

In case you haven’t gotten it yet here is a 90 minute audio-seminar I did last year on Dealing with Relatives. It covers Martyrs and Judges and defusing your reactions. And speaking of defusing, while you are at the Relatives web page check out the hypnosis audio. It will defuse your triggers with Relatives from the inside out so they can do what used to drive you crazy and it won’t matter to you anymore. I have gotten great feedback over the year on it’s effectiveness. You’ll find it all at: http://rickbrinkman.com/relatives

Athena Online, a division of IMS (Institute for Management Studies) has a tremendous library of learning videos by some of the great business experts of our time, including me

I definitely recommend them as a resource. Below is a sample of the quality work they do. It’s an introduction to multiple other videos of me explaining when to use email and when to bail and tips for avoiding misunderstandings.

In addition IMS which sponsors seminars in 26 cities around the globe is launching “Leveraged Learning”, where after the live seminar you have access to multiple resources to solidify your learnings and turn them into action. Definitely check out the Leveraged Learning video here.

As a born and bred New Yorker I grew up with the definition of “being on time” meaning anywhere within 20 minutes of the time you said you would be. This definition comes from the fact that in New York City anything can happen at any time. You can be stopped by a motorcade from the UN, stuck in a subway, or moving at molasses in January speed in traffic. When I moved to the west coast I had experiences of people being annoyed at me for showing up 10 minutes late by their definition, while I thought made good time.

In the last post I linked you to Canadian researchers who found that men were just as willing to apologize as women, except that more often they didn’t think they did anything wrong.

As a Conscious Communicator it’s important to know that how someone knows if they’ve “done something wrong” is based on their behavioral definition. Meaning these behaviors x and y equals doing something wrong and therefore warrants apology.

Actions and words – especially those words that define behavior – mean different things to different people. For example, some people define “listening” as quietly taking in everything another person is saying, while other people define “listening” as asking questions and sharing their own experiences.

As a born and bred New Yorker I grew up with the definition of “being on time” meaning anywhere within 20 minutes of the time you said you would be. This definition comes from the fact that in New York City anything can happen at any time. You can be stopped by a motorcade from the UN, stuck in a subway, or moving at molasses in January speed in traffic. When I moved to the west coast I had experiences of people being annoyed at me for showing up 10 minutes late by their definition, while I thought made good time.

Differences in behavioral definitions are a very common cause of conflict between people. 

You’ll know it’s time to get behavioral definitions if someone says to you, “You don’t ______” — and you know you do. Reply by saying with intent, “I would like to _____.” 

Follow up with, “How would you know if I did ____?  Clarify with questions until the other person is completely behaviorally specific. Then ask, “How do you know that I don’t ____?”

For example if the other person says you don’t “care”, the root of the issue could either be that you are “not” doing something equals “caring” to them or that you “are” doing something that equals not “caring.

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Sharon Jayson reports for USA Today that women apologize more than men, but it’s not because they commit more wrong doing. They just think they do.

New research on apologies from Canadian psychologists finds that men have a “higher threshold” for bad behavior, meaning they just don’t see “wrong” the same way women do, according to a study online in the journalPsychological Science.

Read full article, highly recommended here

I have some motivational signs posted in my office, mostly to do with focus and belief. I shared the Rule of Acquisition #173 in the last post. Here is another favorite of mine that most visitors to my office seem to gravitate to:

HALF ASSED ACTION

IS BETTER THAN

PERFECT PROCRASTINATION.

Rules of Acquisition prop

Yes, I’ll admit it. I’m a Star Trek fan. And of all series and generations. I appreciate a vision of an era where humans can get over their BS with each other and cooperate so that they can experience the same old BS with aliens.

For those of you who may not be fans, the Ferengi race is all about acquisition and profit. Their “bible” is the Rules of Acquisition.

There is one rule I have had tapped to my wall for sometime that relates to living a Life by Design. I share it with you to support your fulfillment of what is important to you.

Rule of Acquisition #173

- Dream

- Plan

- Believe

- Act

Go for your dreams. You can do it.

Dr. Rick B in the studio

The Doctors Rick were in Blackstone Studios (Ashland, OR) this summer, recording the audiobook version of their international best selling book (20 languages), Dealing with People You Can’t Stand, How to Bring Out the Best in People at Their Worst.

It will be available on iTunes, Audible.com, and Emusic.com this fall and in stores by the end of the year.

I’m looking at these two home depot receipts. One is on July 14 and the other is July 15. Those are the last days I saw my father. He had some plants he wanted to hang so I bought two hanging planters and some decorator chains.

My father was always a do-it-yourself guy. He had fashioned two clothes hangers into plant hangers. However they were kind of funky and out of balance. (He usually does higher quality work.) I suggested we make it easy  and  let me get what we need at the Home Depot at 3rd and 58th. Under normal circumstances he would have insisted on doing himself but he went with the flow.

We hung the plants and he meticulously made sure the chains were exactly the same length. He laughed with delight as to how much better it looked than the funky hangers.

He then asked me to frame and hang a picture of him and my mother together laughing. It was from about 10 years earlier when they visited us in Portland for Thanksgiving.

Before I left for the airport I put my hand on his shoulder and said “I wish we could have more time together.” Even as I said it, I also heard it from a different perspective. As if “this was it.” The “last time.”

As I sit here literally two months to the day (9/15/09) since the last time I saw him, I realize that all things pass and there is a “last time.” Who knows what mundane activity  you might be engaged in with that person. One minute you’re here, and the next minute… you’re still here, but it won’t always be that way! There comes a time when that’s it.

So as I look back to our last time, I’m very happy that we had the simple enjoyment of that plant hanging moment together. And I share this with you with the hope that you make the most of every moment with the people you care about. I didn’t know a Home Depot receipt could be so special.

From Left to Right: The Somethings Jake, Simona, Me, my daughter Carle, my wife LIsa

Because of this event with my father, I learned I had family I didn’t know I had. My father has a brother Herbert who lives in Bremen Germany. Strangely I didn’t even know that until I became a young adult. I’ve never met him. He has a son Richard Brinkmann, whom I also never met or even knew about. My mother’s family was a different story. Even though her sisters were in Israel, Canada, and Poland, we kept in touch. My mother would go there or they would come here.

However, my father had a different connection to family. A non-connection. My cousin Richard Brinkmann has three children, Simona, Davey, and a Emmanuel. It turns out Simona lives in New Jersey and when her husband read the story of my father’s demise he put two and two together and realized that we were related. In the perfect synchronicity of things, her two younger brothers, both college students in Germany, were visiting the US at that time. So I got to meet my father’s brother’s son’s children, which of course makes us…ah…”something”.

Also, about a week before my father’s passing, I was wondering about an old friend of mine. Rochelle. She was the best friend of my girlfriend in high school and college and we ultimately became good friends. The last time we saw each other was 1979, about a year and a half after her marriage and the year after mine. I don’t remember what made me think of her, but I felt a twinge of sadness that I didn’t stay connected to her and her husband Al. Well when she read of my father’s demise she found me on Facebook. It turns out she lives 22 blocks from my father’s apartment. We had a wonderful visit and now I have two more friends.

I also visited with my Uncle Kurt. Kurt came to the United States with my mother and father and lived with them for seven years. Kurt really, really, liked children. In fact I called him “da-da” before I  called my own father that.

I’ll never forget Saturday nights, age 6 or 7. My parents would put me to bed. I would pretend to be asleep. Kurt would arrive to babysit. And as soon as my parents left, he would come into the bedroom, I would come out of my ruse and we would watch this wondrous thing called television.

At 9:30 was Paladin, at 10:00 was Gunsmoke (still in the half hour version), and the finale at 10:30 was Sea Hunt. Thanks Uncle Kurt!

I not only reconnected again to him but also with his granddaughter Katrina, which in relation to me makes her…ah…”something.”

So yes, I did lose a father, but I also gained two friends,  one uncle, and four somethings.

Net gain!