Giving Up Our Comfort Zones

I was listening to James Knight yesterday. He was giving a brief talk on colour styles - an entertaining variation on personality types - and he mentioned comfort zones. That is a familiar concept, but how well does it represent what is going on?

The idea is that where we are now is comfortable; where we want to move to involves effort; so we tend to stay where we are, rather than go through that struggle. Effort = distress.

Well, that's not right.

If we have habits we enjoy, that's great. If we have habits we barely notice, they are not a problem. But if we have habits we actively want to change - that's your discomfort zone (DZ). At that point the habit you wish to acquire represents your new comfort zone (CZ). And the hurdle of effort between where you are and where you want to be is your effort zone (EZ).

To represent the desired state as somehow scary seems wide of the mark. That is where we want to be, for goodness sake!

Moreover, telling someone they are in their "comfort zone" with a habit they are struggling to break will certainly detract from the effort needed to move away from it. The old "comfort zone" concept is no help at all! Little wonder that those fed such a disabling mental diet are often sabotaged by the very ideas that are supposed to help them.

Even the suggestion that effort equals distress is not a universal truth. Some folks enjoy the process of change - like the person that soaks up knowledge like a sponge on their journey to academic excellence, or in the process of acquiring a particular skill.

For some people in some situations effort is distress. They stay in their Discomfort Zone when the distress in making the effort exceeds the discomfort of staying where they are - the dog laying on a nail syndrome. They reach their Comfort Zone when the distress of the Effort Zone is less than the discomfort of staying where they are.

Thanks James, your talk got me thinking.

So, shall we tip the old notion of comfort zones on its head? Or shall we preserve some of our current income stream and leave our clients struggling to make the changes they want?

Change and Uncertainty

It is a common misconception that people fear change. On the contrary, people are change.

People change all the time – from the colour of their hair to the clothes they wear; from the book they are reading to the job they are doing. Even the cells in our bodies change – our blood is completely changed every 30 days.

It is not change that people fear, it is the uncertainty associated with change.

Faced with uncertainty your possible responses go beyond the simple alternatives of flight or fight. Psychologists now also recognise freeze (extreme vigilance while immobile), fright (“playing dead”) and faint. I have observed there’s a fifth – flap – and a sixth – flatulence.

Flap is extremely common in the business world and just as evident in Government. Earlier writers characterised it as “seagull management” based on the tendency of senior personnel to fly in, foul everything up and fly off again – leaving the troops on the ground to clear up the resultant mess as best they can.

Flatulence refers to the long-winded, bombastic, pompous and pretentious displays evinced most often by Ministers in reaction to a crisis. This adds greatly to the public spectacle, but does little to seriously address the root of any problem.

Think of Gordon Brown’s ‘saving the world’ as being equivalent to a local moggie making itself more impressive and threatening by raising its fur and arching its back, thus increasing its apparent size and power.

Mistakenly assigning your feelings of concern or resistance about change to simple fear could cause you to miss more meaningful information – like:
i) your unhappiness with the way the change is happening;
ii) your lack of concrete information about the way the change will affect you; or
iii) your dissatisfaction with a lack of genuine opportunities for your voice to be heard in the change process.

When contemplating the changes you face it’s worth recalling that:

* Change is part of everyday life; it’s part of the endless cycle of birth, growth and demise. You are part of that process, so make the most of it.

* You are not alone. Others will have been in the same boat in the past, some will be in the self-same boat you are and others will join the boat later. Share the problems and form a crew.

* When you know what piece of meaningful information is missing, you’ll know what to do.

* One person’s threat is another person’s opportunity. To quote an old adage – when life serves you lemons, make lemonade.

* The inspiration to live a life you’ll love will carry you long after the adrenaline burst from fearing a life you’ll hate has burned out.

We are often admonished not to be fearful; we should “pull ourselves together” we shouldn’t “be so negative” even though worry, fear, concern and trepidation are really useful signals that something may be happening and we need to pay attention.

If we harbour genuine fears then that is how we feel and that is what we have to work with. “Shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” are simply distractions. Going past the fear itself to the situation that evokes that feeling and finding which elements are important to us there is the best way to capture the value in fear’s early warning system.

That’s putting fear to its best possible use. To do the opposite – becoming exclusively focused on our own preservation, rather than notice what is going on – is to devalue the message.

By way of illustration, there’s a simple story to remind us about the value of focus.

A small plane is flying high over the Scottish mountains, when it develops engine trouble. There are five people on board: the pilot, Steve Redgrave, Gordon Brown, the Dali Lama, and a new-age hippie. The cockpit door opens, and the pilot bursts into the compartment.

"People," he begins, "I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that we're about to crash. The good news is that there are four parachutes, and I have one of them!" With that, the pilot throws open the door and jumps from the plane.

Steve Redgrave is on his feet as quick as flash. "People," he says, "I am the world's greatest athlete. The world needs great athletes. I think the world's greatest athlete should have a parachute!" With these words, he grabs one of the remaining parachutes, and hurtles through the door and into the night.

Gordon Brown rises and says, "People, I am the world's smartest and most serious politician. This is a serious situation and the world needs a smart politician like me. I think the world's smartest politician should have a parachute, too." He grabs a pack, and out he jumps.

The Dali Lama and the hippie look at one another. Finally, the Dali Lama speaks.

"Young lady," he says, "I have lived a satisfying life and have known the bliss of True Enlightenment. You have your life ahead of you; you take a parachute, and I will go down with the plane."

As cool as a cucumber, the hippie smiles slowly and says, "Hey, don't worry, dude. The world's smartest politician just jumped out wearing my rucksack."

The magic is not in the mushrooms, it’s in paying attention to what is going on around you.

"Fears are educated into us and can, if we wish, be educated out." – Karl A. Menninger.

How invisible are you?

Recently I was talking with a new contact who offers data management services - basically making digital copies of archive documents. He was wondering whether having a presence on sites like Ecademy or Facebook would yield any benefit to his business. On balance he doubted it.

The reason he gave was that he dealt mainly with people like the Senior Partner in a firm of Solicitors or the CEO of a Hospital Trust. He questioned whether that sort of individual would ever look at any website, even Ecademy, to find services such as his. Probably not.

I asked him to imagine that he was a Senior Partner.

Only then did he recognise the full course of events that led up to a request to tender and eventually a signed contract. He realised - for the first time - that although he might end up meeting people like Senior Partners, such exalted beings do not do the initial leg-work to identify possible service providers.

Generally that is done by someone much lower down the organisation, usually a lot younger and with no decision-making capacity - but certainly with the freedom to list, or not to list, those who might provide that service. And, being younger, that more junior person would almost certainly look at Ecademy, Facebook and other similar sites.

Clearly, if his firm had no presence on those portals, then he would be invisible to the list makers of this world.

Being on the list would not guarantee an invitation to tender; but not being on the list would certainly guarantee no invitation to tender.

It was a small point, missed by my new friend until now, but with all the potential to make a difference. And all from a small piece of networking.

So, how invisible is your firm? And would you like to get more noticed?