Obsessive passion disorder – destroys successful career progress

By Elisabeth Grace Saunders

Your passion for your career can sabotage your attempts to succeed.

When you go from feeling energized, excited and in control of your work to feeling an overwhelming compulsion to achieve and produce, you’ve tipped from helpful harmonious passion into harmful obsessive passion

But when you’ve grown accustomed to operating from a state of obsessive passion, you may want to act differently, but you just don’t know how. Your deeply ingrained mental and behavioral patterns naturally lead you toward seemingly uncontrollable compulsion to work. Paradoxically, these natural reflexes inhibit the quality of your professional output. And when you do make small attempts to change, like leaving the office on time, you experience withdrawal symptoms, which send you scurrying back to your familiar habit patterns.

Fortunately, there is hope. You can rediscover a life of harmonious passion by intentionally changing your behavior and by replacing harmful thought patterns with helpful ones. To help you with this process, I’ve disclosed the thoughts I most commonly see coursing through people’s minds when they feel stuck in a state of obsessive passion and offered suggestions on how to modify them.

Flawed Evaluation of Worth
Harmful	Helpful
I am important and of value because of what I achieve, produce or have. Therefore if I stop achieving, producing or having, my life no longer has value, meaning or purpose.	I am of value because of who I am, not what I do. I am a unique individual whose life has a special purpose regardless of what I earn, accomplish or own.
Perfect is the only option. Less than perfect is failure.	Perfection is an ideal abstraction created by my mind that can not exist in the reality of an imperfect physical world. I can choose to adapt my evaluation methods so that less-than-perfect is still seen as a success.
I am only as good as my last result. If I stop or rest or don’t perform to the same or better level in the future, I will lose everything.	Every life experience offers an opportunity for growth. Each day, I can do my best, correct my mistakes, and learn for the next time I meet a similar challenge. My past provides a secure foundation for my future.

Sense of Over-Responsibility
Harmful	Helpful
If everything doesn’t go according to plan and make everyone happy, it’s my fault. I should have planned more, done more, been more.	Activities rarely go exactly according to plan and often times, no possible scenario could make everyone happy. I take responsibility for the areas within my control but release responsibility for those outside of my control, including unforeseen circumstances and others’ emotional responses.
I can only rest without guilt once all the work is done. If I stop any sooner, I am lazy, selfish and irresponsible.	There will always be more work to do. By choosing to rest at reasonable intervals, I increase my productivity, accomplish more, enjoy life and stop feeling resentful toward others who take breaks.
My needs are the lowest priority. I will only get enough sleep, eat well, exercise and do activities I enjoy once everyone else has their needs — and most of their wants — met.	It’s good for me to be considerate of others’ needs, but I also have a legitimate need for proper self-care. When I take time to nurture my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health, I have a greater capacity to truly connect with and support others.

Insecurity in Relationships
Harmful	Helpful
Everyone is watching and evaluating me. If I don’t appear to meet their standards for outward success, they will think badly of me.	I can choose to not allow my perception of other people’s opinions of me dictate my opinion of myself. I am free to live as I please and make the choices that are right for me.
I’m bad at forming and maintaining relationships. I can never make my friends and family happy so why should I try to have a life outside of work?	It may not be easy for me at first, but I can learn how to form and maintain better relationships. I may not always meet everyone’s expectations, but I have a better chance of success when I make a good effort.
I feel in control at work because certain actions predictably produce specific results. It’s too much of a risk to venture into areas where I don’t always know what to do, and I can’t count on other people’s response to my actions.	I can choose to stay in a place of security and isolation, or I can choose to open my life up to others. I may experience some loss of control, but ultimately I create the possibility of great joy in true relationship with others.

If you think you might have fallen into the trap of obsessive passion, go through this list and ask yourself: Do I agree with any of the harmful thought patterns?

If the answer is “yes,” you can incorporate more helpful thought patterns into your life through these types of activities:

• Writing down your thoughts in a journal and then revising your harmful thoughts into helpful ones.
• Keeping a list of helpful thoughts.
• Meditating on the helpful thoughts by repeating them aloud (or silently)

If you have been able to free yourself to achieve without becoming relentlessly driven, let us know how you succeeded in the comments. Have you noticed a difference in yourself or your work when you operated from a state of harmonious versus obsessive passion?

How managerial psychopaths use emotions to manipulate others

Published on November 29, 2010 by Key Sun, Ph.D. in The Justice and Responsibility League

A persistent myth about psychopaths involves the belief that they are callous, emotional void criminals (particularly serial killers). The mass media (e.g., television shows, films, and books) often reinforces this inaccurate image. For example, a recent ABC program, “Secrets of Your Mind,” presented a story of an incarcerated terrifying serial killer/psychopath who was diagnosed as having brain abnormalities in regulating his emotions.

Two facts contradict the false belief. First, a number (possibly most) of psychopaths are found in managerial or power positions rather than in prison/jail .From the perspective of evolutionary biology, psychopaths flourish in society because most of them actually have the skill to avoid prison. Both criminal and managerial psychopaths are detrimental to others’ well beings. However, unlike the violent criminals who rely on physical aggression to maintain their control over individuals, managerial psychopaths are inclined to employ verbal brutality,deception and emotional abuse and ploys to ruin people’s lives.econd, psychopaths do not lack emotions. Emotions can be divided into self-serving and pro-other ones. Although they lack pro-other or social emotions, they have plenty of self-serving and/or maladaptive emotions. Psychopaths in power positions are good at harming and controlling others in part because they know how to use emotions to manipulate others at the expense of others’ well beings.

Research and observations show that managerial psychopaths possess many self-serving and/or maladaptive emotions, such as: Arrogance, grandiosity, pleasure, anger, rage, hostility, contempt, overweening, envy, jealousy, greed, suspiciousness, impatience, and irritability. Because of their superficial charm, people often misperceive their impulsivity and unscrupulousness as being courageous and determined, and mistake their self-inflation and self-admiration as signs of self confidence.

On the other hand, research and observations also reveal that psychopaths are severely deficient in pro-other emotions, such as: Love, compassion, gratefulness, peacefulness, pleasantness, sympathy, guilt, remorse, empathy, and general moral emotions (e.g., shame, anxiety, and fear). Certainly, they pretend to mimic the emotions, but theirs are very shallow and artificial.

One question remains to be answered: Why do emotionally intelligent, nice people often become the victims of the psychopaths, who have abusive tempers and exhibit glibness, irresponsibility, and deception with an excessive need for control and interference corresponding to their sense of incompetency? In my observations, this is because managerial psychopaths use emotions, including your emotions, to advance their interests.

Let me use a midlevel manager as an example. He used three typical tricks to defeat his victims:

First, he constantly told lies to another as long as it helped maintain his control over the person. The victim, who attempted to communicate with the manager always met frustrations because the boss always denied what he did or justified his actions by saying “What’s wrong with it?”

Second, although the manager had no guilty feelings, he managed to make his abused victim feel inadequate by repeating “It is Ok” (right after his violent emotional outburst against the person who disagreed with him). Basically, he made the victim feel that the victim’s normal emotional reaction to the abuse was overreacting. As the result, the victim felt guilty.

Third, he was good at using another’s empathy. Although anger was his primary temper for controlling others, he was excelled in shifting his emotional expressions from extreme angry to extreme sadness, automatically or voluntarily. Suddenly, he appeared to be a helpless and sad person, needing immediately to be babied by others, arousing his victims’ empathy right away (This shift is part of his performance, different from the emotional instability as observed in borderline personality disorders).

How to deal with them? I agree with Martha Stout’s suggestion that the best method to deal with psychopaths is to detach from them or the situations in which they operate.

However, I do not share the consensus that there is neither a cure nor any effective treatment for psychopathy, which has a strong genetic component. I think that the late British psychologist Hans Eysenck’s research on conditionability and conscience sheds a light on psychopathy (even though he has not examined psychopathy per se). Eysenck contended that people who are impulsive, lack (or have not learned) the sense of guilt or conscience have low conditionability, which was influenced by the process of classical conditioning, particularly during childhood. Although the limbic system regulates the effectiveness of classical conditioning, more frequent and intensive conditioning processes can improve the innate low conditionability.

In short, psychopaths represent a much more complicated category than the offenders portrayed in the media. They thrive not because they lack emotions in general, but because they use emotions (in addition to other tricks) to control others.

 

 

Leadership at the point of a bayonet

By: Major Richard “Dick” Winters with Colonel Cole Kingseed
Berkley Caliber Publishing Group,New York

Ten Principles for Success

1. Strive to be a leader of character, competence, and courage.

2. Lead from the front. Say, “Follow me!” and then lead the way.

3. Stay in top physical shape–physical stamina is the root of mental toughness.

4. Develop your team. If you know your people, are fair in setting realistic goals and expectations, and lead by example, you will develop teamwork.

5. Delegate responsibility to your subordinates and let them do their job. You can’t do a good job if you don’t have a chance to use your imagination and creativity.

6. Anticipate problems and prepare to overcome obstacles. Don’t wait until you get to the top of the ridge and then make up your mind.

7. Remain humble. Don’t worry about who receives the credit. Never let power or authority go to your head.

8. Take a moment of self-reflection. Look at yourself in the mirror every night and ask yourself if you did your best.

9. True satisfaction comes from getting the job done. They key to a successful leader is to earn respect–not because of rank or position, but because you are a leader of character.

10. Hang Tough!–Never, ever, give up

The biggest mistakes a leader can make

1. Putting self interest first
2. Betraying Trust
3. Being too certain – not embracing uncertainty
4. Not living up to values
5. Too focused and obsessive
6. Arrogance
7. Acting too fast
8. Not Authentic
9. Everything focused on the leader
10. Not being self reflective

Video  Featuring:        to view video click here

Bill George, Professor, Harvard Business School and former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Medtronic
Evan Wittenberg, Head of Global Leadership Development, Google, Inc.
Dr. Ellen Langer, Professor, Harvard University
Andrew Pettigrew, Professor, Sïad Business School, University of Oxford
Gianpiero Petriglieri, Affiliate Professor of Organizational Behavior, INSEAD
Carl Sloane, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School
Jonathan Doochin, Leadership Institute at Harvard College
Scott Snook, Associate Professor, Harvard Business School and retired Colonel, US Army Corps of Engineers
Daisy Wademan Dowling, Executive Director, Leadership Development at Morgan Stanley

Rioters at the top and bottom of society

Article by Peter Oborne chief political editor of the Daily Telegraph

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together some time ago to denounce the riots in the UK. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.

But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.

I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.

It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.

Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off.

Yet we celebrate people who live empty lives like this. A few weeks ago, I noticed an item in a newspaper saying that the business tycoon Sir Richard Branson was thinking of moving his headquarters to Switzerland. This move was represented as a potential blow to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, because it meant less tax revenue.

I couldn’t help thinking that in a sane and decent world such a move would be a blow to Sir Richard, not the Chancellor. People would note that a prominent and wealthy businessman was avoiding British tax and think less of him. Instead, he has a knighthood and is widely feted. The same is true of the brilliant retailer Sir Philip Green. Sir Philip’s businesses could never survive but for Britain’s famous social and political stability, our transport system to shift his goods and our schools to educate his workers.

Yet Sir Philip, who a few years ago sent an extraordinary £1 billion dividend offshore, seems to have little intention of paying for much of this. Why does nobody get angry or hold him culpable? I know that he employs expensive tax lawyers and that everything he does is legal, but he surely faces ethical and moral questions just as much as does a young thug who breaks into one of Sir Philip’s shops and steals from it?

Our politicians – standing sanctimoniously on their hind legs in the Commons yesterday – are just as bad. They have shown themselves prepared to ignore common decency and, in some cases, to break the law. David Cameron is happy to have some of the worst offenders in his Cabinet. Take the example of Francis Maude, who is charged with tackling public sector waste – which trade unions say is a euphemism for waging war on low‑paid workers. Yet Mr Maude made tens of thousands of pounds by breaching the spirit, though not the law, surrounding MPs’ allowances.

A great deal has been made over the past few days of the greed of the rioters for consumer goods, not least by Rotherham MP Denis MacShane who accurately remarked, “What the looters wanted was for a few minutes to enter the world of Sloane Street consumption.” This from a man who notoriously claimed £5,900 for eight laptops. Of course, as an MP he obtained these laptops legally through his expenses.

Yesterday, the veteran Labour MP Gerald Kaufman asked the Prime Minister to consider how these rioters can be “reclaimed” by society. Yes, this is indeed the same Gerald Kaufman who submitted a claim for three months’ expenses totalling £14,301.60, which included £8,865 for a Bang & Olufsen television.

Or take the Salford MP Hazel Blears, who has been loudly calling for draconian action against the looters. I find it very hard to make any kind of ethical distinction between Blears’s expense cheating and tax avoidance, and the straight robbery carried out by the looters.

The Prime Minister showed no sign that he understood that something stank about yesterday’s Commons debate. He spoke of morality, but only as something which applies to the very poor: “We will restore a stronger sense of morality and responsibility – in every town, in every street and in every estate.” He appeared not to grasp that this should apply to the rich and powerful as well.

The tragic truth is that Mr Cameron is himself guilty of failing this test. It is scarcely six weeks since he jauntily turned up at the News International summer party, even though the media group was at the time subject to not one but two police investigations. Even more notoriously, he awarded a senior Downing Street job to the former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, even though he knew at the time that Coulson had resigned after criminal acts were committed under his editorship. The Prime Minister excused his wretched judgment by proclaiming that “everybody deserves a second chance”. It was very telling yesterday that he did not talk of second chances as he pledged exemplary punishment for the rioters and looters.

These double standards from Downing Street are symptomatic of widespread double standards at the very top of our society. It should be stressed that most people (including, I know, Telegraph readers) continue to believe in honesty, decency, hard work, and putting back into society at least as much as they take out.

But there are those who do not. Certainly, the so-called feral youth seem oblivious to decency and morality. But so are the venal rich and powerful – too many of our bankers, footballers, wealthy businessmen and politicians.

Of course, most of them are smart and wealthy enough to make sure that they obey the law. That cannot be said of the sad young men and women, without hope or aspiration, who have caused such mayhem and chaos over the past few days. But the rioters have this defence: they are just following the example set by senior and respected figures in society. Let’s bear in mind that many of the youths in our inner cities have never been trained in decent values. All they have ever known is barbarism. Our politicians and bankers, in sharp contrast, tend to have been to good schools and universities and to have been given every opportunity in life.

Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed , it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates.

The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.

Learning to speak Manager – for the ‘Wow factor’

Learning to speak manager is essential to those at an early stage of their career. The beauty of this language is it’s ability to say nothing and communicate quite concisely the perception of you as really sophisticated manager – and get the ‘Wow factor’

Getting a sense of identity within the modern business world is not a ‘walk in the park’. For the ‘go-get’ manager, speaking with the right clichés is ‘core focus’ and is perceive by many as an indication of ‘bandwidth’. It is important that the modern manager does ’what it says on the tin’ rather than just ‘running things up the flagpole and waiting for someone to salute’. Many just ‘fly a kite to see which way the wind is blowing’ but this is not really the ‘flavour of the month’.

If one really wants to be perceived as having a ‘robust focus on the issues’, one must really have quite a measured ‘strategic approach’ to a ‘range of outcomes’, and be able to communicate these both ‘top down’ and ‘bottom up’. ‘Organic performance growth’ is really a function of ‘effective teamwork’ during which business leaders should ‘walk the talk’ ‘across the board’ – not just pay ‘lip service’.

We are now in an environment where ‘bottom line’ is not the only ‘key performance indicator’ to ‘sustainable growth’. Other ‘fundamental underpinning factors’ also contribute to the ‘strategic trajectory’ of the ‘corporate journey’. Issues such as ‘human resource development’, ‘succession planning’, and ‘change dynamics’ and key in determining ‘fitness for purpose’ within the organisation..

‘Sustainable development’ is also ‘high on the agenda’ ‘across the board’, so that ‘at the end of the day’,’ pigs may fly’ but there is some certainty that things will not be complete until the ‘fat lady sings’. What is certainly sure is that the principle of ‘no pain no gain’ certainly applies.

Learning how to speak manager is not ‘rocket science’, but one must have the capability to ‘think outside the box’. ‘Blue sky thinking’ is critical. Sometimes, it is essential to ‘brainstorm things’ and ‘drop something in the pool to see if it makes a splash’. If it does, then it is very important to ‘push the needle’, and sometimes may even be necessary to ‘shoot the puppy’ in extreme circumstance. Now I know that this is a ‘big ask’ but ‘swallowing the frog’ at the first possible opportunity can lead to a ‘win win’ situation and a ‘net net’ benefit. This will ensure that you have all your ‘ducks in a row’ and do not fall ‘behind the curve’.

‘Paradigm shifts’ must also be considered if the ‘low hanging fruit’ is to be ‘harvested’ following which ‘bottom fishing’ may be the most appropriate ‘way forward’. However, one of the most important issue in ‘effective strategic delivery’ of this will be ‘robust communication channels’ which give a ‘heads up’ to the ‘primary stakeholders’, but it is important not to ‘jump the shark’ when doing this. ‘Bite the bullet’ is always the best policy in these circumstances.

If you are expecting a ‘just add water’ solution to these issues, you will have ‘missed the boat’ and not really ‘be on the same page’. This is the ‘key differentiator’ and ‘USP’ of the manager language – ‘aliening objectives’.

We are not just looking at this to put ‘ticks in boxes’ but need to ‘go the extra mile’ if we to secure this language as a ‘core competence’ because, ‘when all is said and done’ and the’ rubber hits the road’, it will be a case of ‘survival of the fittest’

‘Now is your time to shine’ as a ‘beacon of excellence’ and develop your career beyond your ‘level of competence’.

Learning manager, really is a ‘no brainer’ – right from the ‘get go’ and we will then all be ‘singing from the same song-sheet’.

Operate a civil environment for creativity, innovation and productivity

In the UK, Tony Blair in 2004 asserted that lack of respect was one of the top problems facing the UK for the next decade across all walks of life. New research by Christine Porath (Georgetown University) and Amir Erez (University of Florida) seems to confirm this as an increasing international problem which impacts severely not just on society, but on organisational effectiveness also – especially creativity.

They looked at various aspects of the effects of an uncivil culture, but one of the most interesting findings was on the effects on creativity and innovation.

The strength and consistency of the findings on Creativity were extremely significant. They found that even with a one time, relatively low intensity incident, participants who had been treated rudely were not able to perform as well on cognitive tests. Participants lost task focus and performed 33% less well on creative tasks. This is a very significant finding.

Why is creativity impaired as a result of rudeness? In the past, it was believed that creativity came as a bolt of insight, however it is now widely accepted that creativity requires focussed concentration and juggling of ideas. When rudeness and aggression is experienced, it appears to rob us of  cognitive resources, decreasing attention and overloading working memory, thereby reducing creativity.

The negative effects on creativity are enhanced when an act of rudeness is delivered by an authority figure, such as a manager. Also, not only were also significant effects on fellow workers, who witnessed the incidents, there were effects on those who were only told about them. Productivity was affected right across the board and sometimes become the pervasive communication house style, with perverse effects on the business.

The cost of rudeness is difficult to fully quantify, People suffer and retaliate in myriads of ways: 94 percent of targets of rudeness get even with their offenders. 88 percent of these also get even with their organisations.

Rudeness appears to prime dysfunctional behaviour and aggressive thoughts and can poison the organisational culture in multiple ways and seems to inhibit creativity and cause people to make more errors at a time when it is most needed – when the pressure is on!