doug smith training

Anger. Resentment. Pain. Things get in the way of listening when we see an enemy in front of us. Even when we did not choose the enemy because the enemy chose us. Listening to our enemies is tough. Is it necessary? What are the comparative risks and costs: listening to not listening? It's hard to listen to our enemies and it's so much harder when we don't. When we don't listen to our enemies we miss opportunities to understand the thinking behind their moves. We miss hints and signs of trouble. And, we miss the ability to reach shared meaning and perhaps shared understanding. Even if compassion is not instantaneous, leaders have an obligation to keep it possible. Listen. It is a slow way to peace, but so much faster than fighting. -- doug smith  

Do you get angry? Doesn't everyone? A temper is a terrible thing, because it harms the owner the most. When we are angry, our target may not even know it. But, we sure do and that energy feeds on itself. I do not like being angry. I've had too much practice. Anger has hurt me and it has hurt others I never wanted to hurt. While anger can have its purpose -- defending someone in danger who has been abused or gathering the energy to right a wrong -- most of the time it is energy that could be better spent in repair. Better spent in building rapport. Better spent in building relationship. Anger fools us. Anger taunts us. Anger misdirects us. We might tied to work just to make sure that our anger is not part of the reason for our anger. Because many times, it is. What should we do? I humbly offer this distillation from wise advice of others. Breathe. Pause. Breathe again. Give your brain time to quiet the defensive posture and clearly see what's going on. What's going on? B

Silence in your anger gives it time to heal. -- doug smith

Are your team members ever angry with you? Whether you are a creative artist, a business person, a not-for-profit consultant...whatever -- when we are doing important, passionate work we will sometimes generate anger. It might be unexpected. It might be provoked. People get angry. Anger can cloud our understanding. We can disagree. We disagree every day with some one (and sometimes it feels like half the world!) The better path, better than getting upset, is to clarify. If we disagree, we can figure out how to understand. Unless we understand, all the anger in the world is wasted energy. High performance leaders find ways to disagree respectfully while staying open to new possibilities. Ever been wrong? I'm wrong at least once a day. Disagreeing with my truth is often useful. Getting angry at it seldom is. -- doug smith

Why do people get stuck in their anger? Anger feeds on itself. It's contagious. It spreads only ill feelings and seldom accomplishes value. It gets in the way. I understand where it comes from. I feel angry myself sometimes. But it does not help us most of the time. We all make mistakes. We change, we grow, we cross boundaries. We even hurt feelings. Let's let the feelings heal. Let's learn and move forward. You'll make mistakes and I'll make mistakes and the more passionate we are about what we do the more likely we are to cross those hard to see boundaries. If you can forgive my mistake I can forgive your anger. Then we can both let go and go forward. -- doug smith

What makes you angry? Do you ever feel anger and wonder where it came from? Sometimes I've noticed that anger appears out of scale with the thing that seemed to trigger it. Maybe it's an accumulation of aggravations. Maybe it's a sustained patience that has become unsustainable. Maybe it's a lifetime of little disappointments. The anger boils, flairs, and erupts. At that point it can be highly unhealthy. We lash out. We shout. We blame. We break things. Humans can be so sloppy sometimes. We lose our center and our balance lists like a ship in a storm. Our storm of anger rocks our world. Maybe you haven't experienced this, and if not, maybe you've seen it in other people. It can scare. Where the anger heads though isn't always where it belongs. Fall-out occurs. Innocent feelings and people are hurt. The targets of our anger are seldom the cause of our anger. We punish the wrong people. We overreact to minor disagreements propelled by the build u