Necessary Endings (8 page)

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In teams, begin to share, brainstorm, and take action on the things you can control during the rest of your hours at work
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The results are often powerful, because this exercise gets to the root of the problem in the mental map: control. When the map says that nothing you do matters, then you stop focusing on the things that you do have control over, things that actual y do matter and that can make a difference. But when you regain control of yourself, strong results can be obtained, even in crummy environments. I got one letter from a wife in the midst of the economic crisis saying “Thank you. You gave me my husband back.” So here’s the lesson: Our brains drive our behavior, and it is very possible for our brain hardware and software, the mental maps, to keep us stuck. The good news is that it can be changed with a little focus and a little work. And as true as it was in the context of the financial crash a few years ago, this news is just as true in the context of necessary endings.

So now we get to the next step in the process of making necessary endings a part of your repertoire. First, I asked you to look at how you felt about pruning in general. Next, I asked you to begin to normalize endings. And now the third:
Identify the internal maps that keep you from the endings you need to execute.

In the beginning of the chapter, I said that pain is supposed to move us to do something. If you have ever held your finger over a lit candle, you have seen this law in action. But sometimes people get stuck in a type of misery in which they are
prone more to inaction than action.
Learned helplessness and other dynamics can keep you from making the endings you or your business need to make. You can get paralyzed. So let’s see how these dynamics work.

Examine Your Internal Map

As we saw above, if your brain senses that something is the way it is supposed to be, it begins marshaling resources to initiate action. But if it senses that something is wrong, which registers as an “error,” it moves against or flees whatever it sees as wrong. That is why it is so important for you to have a worldview that sees seasons and life cycles as normal, so your brain wil not register them as errors and fight them. Now we are going to look at some other belief systems or internal maps that might be keeping you stuck and too paralyzed to make endings.

Normal y, when you see that something is good to do, you wil do it,
unless your software says that it is not good to do
. Normal y, when you see that something is right, the brain moves forward to execute it. Your brain exercises something psychologists cal conflict-free aggression. (Not bad aggression, as we normal y cast it, like violence), conflict-free aggression is energy that is free to take action, not hampered, so you can function. If you have ever been depressed or anxious while you tried to concentrate or reach a goal, you know what it is like when this ability is missing or unavailable to you.

If aggression, initiative, or energy is without conflict, it is free to move you to perform functions like these:

• To sense what is real y going on around you;

• To think logical y;

• To think abstractly;

• To exercise good judgment;

• To concentrate;

• To see dangers realistical y;

• To see reality;

• To make decisions;

• Then, to act on al of the above.

If there is an internal conflict, however, or what neuroscientists are now cal ing perceived errors, then the action shuts down and you move away from the decision or protest it. You don’t see it clearly and can’t act when you do. Where does this conflict come from? Your internal software,
which
is composed of your belief systems about endings and your past experiences with them.

Remember El en, the newly appointed executive I described in chapter 2? She saw clearly what was right to do for the business. But
her software
said that it was not right for her to hurt someone.
Her brain’s operating instructions saw hurt and harm as the same thing, which prevented her from moving decisively.

Another leader I worked with told me that when he interacted with a particular direct report, he often found himself unable to think or to concentrate. As we probed further, he recognized that these feelings came up whenever they got into a discussion about trimming staff from that person’s department. It was a department that this leader formerly headed; he stil had a lot of relationships with the people there and felt deep loyalty to them. The very thought of an ending that would affect the people he cared about made his brain slow down. His conflict with an ending affected the kinds of functions I listed above, and he was freezing up. The sad thing was that he was actual y working against himself, for if he had al of his brainpower available to him at those moments, he might have been able to find ways to save many of them—but not without his creativity and insight, which was shutting down. When we removed that way of thinking from his mental map, he was able to get moving again.

Here is a key question to help you get a handle on what might be preventing you from acting: What are the mental maps that keep you from executing a necessary ending?

To help you answer it, I’l list some of the kinds of thinking patterns that I have seen in lots of people, even very high-functioning leaders. See if you identify with any of them, then become consciously aware of how these maps drive your behavior. One of the big first steps to rewriting your brain’s software is awareness.

One more thought about mapping and internal software. Maps are built up in myriad ways. Al of your past experiences with endings go into that computer cal ed your brain and become a part of who you are. As we review each of the maps that fol ow, notice how the threads of past experiences are woven throughout.

Five Internal Maps

Let’s look at some of the most common maps that keep necessary endings from happening: having an abnormal y high pain threshold, covering for others, believing that ending it means “I failed,” misunderstood loyalty, and codependent mapping.

Having an Abnormally High Pain Threshold

“So what is my problem?” asked Dennis, a CEO in tech. “Do I just have an abnormal y high threshold for pain? Do I just by nature put up with too much?”

“Glad you asked,” I said. “The answer is yes, and the bad news is that your board of directors and your P&L don’t. So, we have got to get to work on it so you begin to feel the heartburn as deeply as they do.”

Dennis was exactly right. He had learned to put up with a lot of misery and was almost numb to it. He knew there were problems, and he was working on them, but if he had not gotten so used to putting up with people’s problems, he would have acted much sooner. He had some internal software that said to him, just like what some parents say to kids when they hurt themselves: “Oh, stop whining. That doesn’t hurt.” Gradual y a child gets to the point where he can’t real y weigh his own feelings anymore and instead learns that even when he is hurting, wel , “it doesn’t hurt.”

Dennis was like that. He had had formative experiences in his life in which he had to put up with a lot of pain at the hands of others. As a result, he learned to become responsible for their problems and to negate his own emotional responses to them. He had been systematical y talked out of his gut feelings, his perceptions, and his ability to weigh them.

Having become so accustomed to a high level of pain in his upbringing, his brain now registered it as normal, and he was numb to the poor performance of others and how much he was stomaching for them. He just tolerated difficult situations long past when they should have been dealt with. My main work with him was twofold: first, to get him in touch with and aware of how much he tolerated negative things, and second, to get him to be more
instantly
aware of how he real y felt about the poor performers who stood between him and the goals. I had him sit and tune in to himself after meetings, reviews, updates, and conversations with the team. Gradual y, he began to notice. Final y, one day in one of our sessions, he came out with it.

“I am getting more and more bugged with Peter,” he said. “I am sick of how long this project is taking him. I have been asking him for over a year to get us where we need to be on this, and he stil is at about step two.”

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

“I think I am going to go create some of that urgency you talk about,” he said.

And he did. But not until he saw how his software had been written to negate, minimize, put up with, and carry a lot of pain, al the while tel ing him it was “not that bad” or he “could buckle up and keep going.” Soon after, he made some significant changes in the company, not only replacing some people, but also putting an end to the option of nonperformance (a concept we wil talk about later). His misery ended.

Covering for Others

Akin to having an abnormal pain threshold is the map that drives some people to take too much responsibility for others. I often tel leaders that many of them have a problem just because of who they are: nice and responsible people. Nice, responsible people got where they are by caring about others and also working very hard and being super responsible, making sure it al gets done.

But they have a vulnerability, also. They often got to be so responsible in their “mapping” years because they were the superstars of families or other systems and learned that it
all depended on them
. They usual y covered for others, taking on the responsibilities of someone else—often a sibling, sometimes a parent—who was not pul ing his load; over time they just got used to doing that. Recently I talked to a woman who said she remained too long in situations and relationships that were not good for her based on a childhood map that was created when she covered for an alcoholic mother by raising her younger siblings.

There are certain benefits to this behavior in the short term, but the long-term consequences far outweigh them. One consequence is that relationships and projects are al owed to go on far past the point when they should have been “fixed, closed, or sold.” As a result, goals are not reached and potential is not realized, not to mention the misery of the one who is doing al the work.

Believing That Ending It Means I Failed

Leaders, like most good people, persevere. It is one of the most fundamental character strengths in the human repertoire. Life and success depend on it, in every area, from performance success to relationship success to even our physical health and wel -being. Especial y with winners and high performers, quitting is never an option.

But there is a toxic version of not quitting. It happens when the label of “quitting” in the big sense is equated with stopping a particular goal or endeavor. In other words, if you quit any one thing, you are a quitter instead of being wise. For example, the map says that ending a particular business strategy means you are a quitter. Or giving up on a relationship means being a quitter. “If you shut down this project, or quit trying with this individual person, you are a quitter, and that is terrible,” is what the internal map says. Quitting is just bad, period. Always, anytime, anywhere.

Furthermore, the label gets attached not to the project or the individual case, but the self. “I am a quitter,” is what goes through the person’s head, instead of “I decided to fold on this particular hand. It was stupid to go forward.” One of the most important aspects to any high performance is the ability to separate one’s personhood from any particular result. Quarterback Peyton Manning does not think he is a loser if he throws one interception or loses one game. His identity is separate from any one result. Likewise, successful leaders are bigger than any individual outcome; their sense of self-worth doesn’t depend on its having to work. Their whole self-image is not at stake. They are separate from “the deal.”

If leaders are not separate from a particular outcome, then there is real trouble. I have seen many leaders drive companies downward in a relentless, stubborn drive to make a particular vision or strategy succeed, or even a person, so they would not feel like or be labeled a failure. In reality they became much more of a failure because of their failure to fail wel . Failing wel means ending something that is not working and choosing to do something else better.

Psychology researchers Charles Carver and Mark Scheier make the distinction between “giving up effort” and “giving up commitment.” They point out how important it is to realize that giving up on some particular commitment doesn’t necessarily mean you have to give up on effort.

Instead, that effort can be redirected to another goal worthy of your resources. But some people have maps in their heads that say, “Any giving up is bad.” This belief keeps them from endings that should happen. See: C. Carver and M. Sheier, “Three Human Strengths,” in
A Psychology of
Human Strengths
:
Fundamental Questions and Future Directions for a Positive Psychology
, eds. L. Aspinwal and U. Staudinger, (Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2002), pp. 87–102. Sometimes it makes sense to quit a particular project or goal. It does not mean you are a “quitter.”

Misunderstood Loyalty

Our most powerful internal maps are our relational ones. In fact, our earliest mappings of the world come from our relationships. This is probably not news to you, but it is very important in terms of endings. You have software that tel s you how to negotiate virtual y every aspect of life as it plays out in relationships, and the maps order how you think, feel, and behave.

If these rules come into conflict with any particular ending, then you wil be stuck. I worked with a business owner one time who began under a mentor who launched him and brought him up in the business. This mentor was a great gift to him, and without him he probably would not have even gotten started. They worked together in the business for about a decade.