We coach leaders to the Pinnacle of performance
Admitting We Have an Automatic
Mode and Managing It:
Topic highlights: ▪ Catch the Performance Improvement Wave ▪ It Takes More than Managing the "Objects" of a Business ▪ The Automatic Mode of Human Activities
Success results not just
from what you know
Catch the Performance Improvement Wave
This website identifies a powerful new addition to our tools for achieving and sustaining success. While many factors contribute to organizational success, excellent human performance ranks at the top. Achieving peak personal performance requires recognizing and leveraging the distinction between two fundamental modes of human activities. We are all familiar with the first mode, which processes our thoughts, knowledge, and intellect. The second mode of human actions and thought patterns, which we perform automatically and uncontrollably, has remained elusive until now. Admitting we have this second mode of automatic activities, understanding it, and managing it is the next wave in improving success for all forms of organizations. Automatic human activities we need to understand and manage better include habitual behaviors, uncontrollable blockages to action, hidden thought patterns, and reflexively-enacted skills. As this new performance-excellence wave rises, those who catch it will experience the exhilaration of riding a sustainable unfair advantage over those who miss the wave.
It Takes More than Managing the "Objects" of a Business
Mick, the third-generation CEO of a family owned 400-person automotive supply company, exhibited the distinction between excelling at the "objects" of a business and performing well on the “people side.” His intelligence, technical degree, experience, and business acumen enabled him to excel at the measurable aspects of his company. However, he faltered when it came to leading his employees. Mick lamented, "I could perform most of my activities well, but I couldn't control my temper." Mick went on to describe his attempts to change his behavior. "When anyone screwed up, I exploded and attacked them – often humiliating them in public. My HR Director persuaded me that my behavior was sapping my employees' energy and undermining their creativity, so I decided to change. What an unpleasant surprise! Sometimes I did not even notice my aggressive behavior. When I did notice, I still could not control my rages. My bullying behavior controlled me, I could not control it."
Stories similar to Mick's play out repeatedly in businesses and other organizations for people who perform most aspects of their job brilliantly but display some dysfunctional behaviors that undermine their overall effectiveness. If you lead an organization or otherwise have responsibilities for the performance of others, you probably have encountered "Micks" that you would like to improve. You likely have told them that they need to change. Unfortunately, people cannot usually transform their automatic characteristics on their own. It's difficult to help other people change without understanding the nature of the underlying mental processes that drive uncontrollable behaviors and thought patterns. To get the most out of people whose performance you rely on, learn to distinguish between when you can help them improve by providing information and when, because they cannot control their automatic activities, you must use different processes to help them improve their performance. Mick will reappear at this website as we describe how to overcome limitations created by the involuntary mode of human activities.
The Automatic Mode of Human Activities
We recognize explicitly, understand comprehensively, and improve systematically the thinking mode of human activities. Currently, business people recognize implicitly, understand poorly, and improve haphazardly the automatic mode of human activities.
We implicitly recognize the second, automatic, mode of human activities when we discuss such currently elusive topics as "soft" versus "hard" success factors, leadership versus management, the existence of a knowing-doing gap, thinking outside "the box," and the "comfort zone."
Because most people do not explicitly recognize the automatic mode of human actions, they don't strive to understand its properties and leverage these properties to build systematic improvement techniques. That we call some types of success factors "soft" indicates poor understanding. Most people realize leadership differs from management, but they can't identify the fundamental basis of the distinction. We can't always execute what we know we should do to achieve success, but don't clearly understand why. Business leaders casually speak about "thinking outside the box," but they fail to leverage the insight because they don't understand the nature of, much less know how to manage effectively, this mysterious "box." Also, current understanding does not identify, and therefore does not take advantage of, the commonality among different types of automatic activities.
Lack of understanding of the underlying properties that control the automatic mode of human activities makes it difficult to create systematic improvement techniques. Scattered successes in improving uncontrollable activities have emerged without a strong theoretical underpinning, but a fundamental understanding of the properties of the second, automatic mode of behaviors and thought patterns makes possible reliable, extendable improvement techniques.
A powerful way to recognize the distinction between the two modes of activities is to experience a conflict between the two. Here is a dramatic instance that occurred early in my life, and perhaps this will help you recall similar insightful instances from your life. When I was 20, I noticed that I engaged in what we now call "road rage." When people cut me off in traffic, I would become enraged, scream at them, and attempt to retaliate by cutting them off as soon as I could. I grew increasingly concerned about my uncontrollable anger and my unsafe retaliatory driving. Finally, I decided I would no longer react that way when someone drove rudely. When the next person cut me off, how do you think I reacted? I retaliated! After I recovered from losing control, I was confused and disappointed that I had not done better. This experience drove me into reality vertigo that made me wonder, “Who's in charge here?” I had created a clear intention to behave differently, yet something “inside me” impelled me to behave as I had previously, as if my intention did not matter.
I refused to accept my inability to enact this intention. I resolved that, no matter what, I would not rage and attempt to reciprocate when the next impolite driver aggressively squeezed his car between my car and the one in front of me. Since I commuted in city traffic during rush hour, I did not have to wait long for an opportunity to test my resolve. The next time a driver cut me off, I did not make aggressive gestures or retaliate. However, what happened internally astonished me. An almost overwhelming impulse to strike back surged through me. I felt the driver had trespassed on my rightful territory, and I needed to teach him a lesson. That was the first time I experienced so vividly a struggle between my intentions and my automatic thoughts and actions. It felt like an internal war over control of my behavior. This traumatic internal conflict launched an epiphany for me. I suddenly realized I had two distinct aspects of myself competing for control of my thoughts and actions, and "I" didn't have a clue how to control which competitor won.
I learned another valuable lesson during the following months. I continued my determination to avoid retaliatory driving behavior. My internal struggle persisted as my compulsion relentlessly challenged my commitment to myself, but I persevered. After a while, the urge to seek revenge receded. After a few more months, it became comfortable to avoid agitation and to resist retaliation. I overcame my need to strike back by telling myself stories, which was fortuitous because I was two decades away from understanding the automatic, uncontrollable mode and its properties. I told myself that I was not responsible for reforming rude drivers and that my emotional health, my safety, and the safety of other drivers were more important than avenging someone else’s inconsiderate behavior. Finally, avoiding retaliation became easy for me. In my current terminology, I transformed myself – I became different by reprogramming my automatic mode. My new automatic behavior was consistent with my intentions. I no longer had to focus my attention on the problem, and avoiding retaliation no longer required the greatest willpower I could muster. The road-rage experience convinced me that we have two distinct forces competing for control, that we can transform automatic behaviors, and that these new automatic behaviors can endure. Fortunately, we can create new habits without exercising dogged willpower over a long time. At this website, you will learn powerful techniques to transform bad habits.
The root cause of many career derailments and corporate failures lies in dysfunctional or inadequate automatic, robot-like human activities. Therefore, explicitly recognizing the existence of this distinct operating mode, understanding how it works, and applying systematic improvement techniques creates the best corrective action for many failures and an opportunity to achieve greater and more consistent successes. The rest of this website leads you through how to understand and transform the automatic mode of human actions and thought patterns. The next page identifies the decisive impact of automatic activities on success
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