Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, we all have them and whether we realize it or not, they have a definite impact on our personal and professional success. I'm referring to our behavioral comfort zones. Do you know what your comfort zones are? Have you consciously thought about them? Do your comfort zones empower you to achieve or do they limit your potential? What price are you willing to pay to be mentally and emotionally comfortable?

 

The term comfort zone was originally used to describe a temperature range of about 67 to 78 degrees at which, depending on the season, people were neither too hot nor too cold, i.e., comfortable. Judith M. Bardwick, author of "Danger in the Comfort Zone" (American Management Association, 1991), used the term in a behavioral sense to describe a condition or situation in which a person feels secure, comfortable and in control.  According to Bardwick: "The comfort zone is a behavioral state within which a person operates in an anxiety-neutral position."

 

From a psychological standpoint a comfort zone is an artificial mental boundary within which you maintain a sense of security and out of which you can experience great discomfort. 

 

How Were Your Comfort Zones Developed?

 

A comfort zone results in response to conditioning that causes a person to erect mental boundaries that shape and control his or her thoughts and behaviors. Such boundaries often create an unfounded sense of security. People's comfort zones define the personal, work, and social environments they have grown accustomed too. They influence the people they interact with and the type of friends they make. They determine the lifestyles they accept or reject. A person who has established a comfort zone in a particular area of his or her life, will tend to stay within that zone and resist stepping outside of it in order to avoid the stresses and uncertainty that comes from acting in a new or different way. Comfort zones can also apply to groups and entire organizations.

 

To a significant degree, our comfort zones are a reflection of our self-concept and how we think and expect things should be. Our self-concept is how we view ourselves and determines how we will experience life. If we see ourselves in a positive and healthy light, our life experiences will be positive and healthy. It doesn't mean, of course, that our lives will be free of challenges and adversity, just that we will have a healthier approach to dealing with them. If our opinion of ourselves is weak and fragile, we will find life's challenges overwhelming and at times, insurmountable.

 

Our comfort zones reflect a familiar pattern of behavior. Basically, they are thermostats for what each of us is comfortable doing and are directly related to our dreams and accomplishments. Like the thermostats in our homes, they tell us when we are feeling uncomfortable. They represent our zones of belief about ourselves and the patterns of behaviors that we have repeated so many times and with which we are so familiar.

 

How Satisfied Are You with Your Current Situation?

 

If both your personal life and professional life are currently right on track, then your behavioral comfort zones are just right for you. Your behaviors are giving you exactly what you desire from life. However, if you are not completely satisfied with the direction in which some aspect of your life is headed or are dissatisfied, you must implement different behaviors than those that are currently getting you the undesirable results you are experiencing. This means that since your current thoughts and actions are limited by your present comfort zones, you must expand your comfort zones to accommodate those new behaviors that will generate the life outcomes you desire. If you are dissatisfied with your life style, you can change it by changing your comfort zones.

 

Expanding Your Comfort Zone

 

Change can be disturbing and uncomfortable. That's why people usually try to avoid it and consciously or subconsciously decide to step back to the familiar behavioral constraints of their comfort zones. To step outside his or her comfort zone, a person must experiment with new and challenging behaviors and then be prepared to deal with the different responses that those behavioral changes generate. A person must consciously decide that he or she would rather deal with the challenges, anxiety and stress that change brings to achieve meaningful, rewarding and satisfying results than put up with the disappointments and frustrations that come with remaining in a comfort zone.

 

In order to grow and change, we must first become discontented with living in our current comfort zones. To change to a different life style we must first realize that all meaningful and lasting changes occur first in our minds and then they work their way into reality. If we clearly and vividly imagine ourselves being and having the things we truly want, we will create a new picture of ourselves. The old comfort zone will become unacceptable and we will find ways to acquire a new comfort zone that is consistent with our dreams and desires. This includes accepting the dangers along with the pleasures. The key to upgrading a comfort zone is to raise our self-image and level of what we expect or want first; then we will find an opportunity to achieve our goals. It requires our setting our belief thermostat up a few degrees to permit us to act to in the ways required to achieve what we want.

 

Incremental Change is Key

 

In order for there to be an improvement on one's behavioral comfort level, some stress must be present. It is the body's positive response to stress and anxiety that creates improvement. Consider a bodybuilder doing push-ups lying on his back. No improvement in muscle strength will develop because no stress is being applied to the bodybuilder's arms. On the other hand, if he were to flip over and do several sets by pushing his body up from the floor, increased muscle strength would result.

 

Similarly, the process of changing one's behavioral comfort zone needs to be gradual and incremental. In a famous experiment performed with mice in 1908 by psychologists Robert M. Yerkes and John D. Dodson, it was shown that stimulation of the mice improved performance up to a certain level, what is now known as optimal anxiety. Beyond that optimal level, increased stress actually led to continually decreasing results. According to Daniel H. Pink, author of "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" (Riverhead, 2009: "We need a place of productive discomfort.") "If you're too comfortable, you're not productive. And if you're too uncomfortable, you're not productive. Like Goldilocks, we can't be too hot or too cold."

 

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Valuing diversity is about recognizing, accepting and respecting people's uniqueness. Workforce diversity includes a broad range of differences, visible and non-
visible that exist among workers in an organization. These include a wide assortment of unique individual characteristics and experiences, such as communication style, career path, life experience, educational background, geographic location, income level, marital status, military experience, parental status and other variables that influence personal perspectives. If a diversity program is still focusing primarily on race and gender, then it is seriously out of date.

 

Much of traditional diversity training focuses on how we should act around people who are different from us. It emphasizes building awareness of, tolerance for and appreciation of workforce diversity. While this is a critical starting point, such initiatives often fall short of building the necessary people skills which allow organizations to actually leverage diverse work environments for increased operational effectiveness. In addition, such an approach often keeps us fixated on the details that divide us rather than focusing on shared elements that unite us.

 

In the 70s diversity training was positioned as a way for organizations to protect themselves against civil rights violations by focusing on staffing upper-level management ranks with groups that had previously been in the managerial minority. The reality of doing business throughout the U.S. today is that diversity has pretty much arrived, in our offices, in our institutions and on our production floors. While it certainly is true that the problem of discrimination in hiring and career advancement practices isn't gone, the issues facing diversity in the workplace today have more to do with helping workers and managers function in a more inclusive and respectful manner in order to be successful in a working environment that may be more diverse than ever before.

 

The challenge now is to help managers truly value diversity and to approach it as a vehicle for attaining a competitive advantage in the marketplace, not just to guard against law suits.

 

Benefits of Valuing Diversity

 

Valuing diversity means accepting and respecting people who exhibit beliefs, qualities and characteristics that differ from our own rather than judging others by the extent to which they conform to conventional cultural values or personal preferences. Valuing diversity also has to do with leveraging differences among people in ways in which those differences can be directed to contribute to a richer, more creative and more productive business environment. Some of the benefits realized by organizations that maintain a diversity friendly environment include increased trust, greater teamwork, better staff cohesion, easier resolution of differences and more effective communication.

 

Celebrating diversity can provide an organization with access to a larger pool of talent that will invigorate and strengthen it. When people are encouraged to share their particular strengths and experiences with their colleagues they tend to participate at a much higher level in the success of the organization of which they are a part. Diversity then becomes a tool organizations can use to get things done.

 

Challenges that Diversity Brings

 

Diversity is really just a way for describing the different people in our organizations. No two employees are the same, think the same or do things in exactly the same manner. Furthermore, we are all susceptible to prejudices and stereotypes that if left unchecked can lead to conflict and discord in the workplace. Organizations that ignore diversity issues or only deal with them when they are forced to, generate an environment in which less work gets done and the work that does get done takes longer and is more difficult. In addition, workers in such an environment are usually less engaged in achieving organizational objectives.

 

On the other hand, organizations that commit to making diversity a positive force in the workplace reap substantial benefits because they get rid of obstacles to success and create a more productive environment in which people feel valued, where their talents are being fully utilized, and in which organizational goals are met.

 

The good news is that organizations can move in this direction at any time by planning and implementing diversity programs that, over time, lead to the positive outcomes we've described. All it takes is sustained effort and commitment. Diversity is one of those tools that can actually make people's lives more enjoyable in the workplace

 

The Role of the Manager

 

One style of management does not fit the needs of a diverse workforce. To be most effective, managers must be capable of demonstrating an adaptable or flexible approach to managing diverse employees and their respective needs. There are four key strategies managers can use to manage their subordinates in a manner that values diversity.

• Matching People and Jobs. Paying attention to what people like to do an what people are good at helps make the best use of people's abilities and provides them with optimal rewards and satisfaction.


• Rewarding Performance Meaningfully. People are not all motivated by the same things. Tailoring rewards and incentives to the individual desires of a diverse workforce enhances workers commitment to perform to their full potentials.


• Informing and Involving People. Stress levels can be minimized by focusing on identifying the degree to which workers wish to be informed and/or involved with their workplace and then providing each members of a diverse workforce with his or her desired level of inclusion.


• Supporting Lifestyle and Life Needs. Identifying approaches to meet individual worker lifestyle preferences related to work hours fitness, leave options, etc. conveys a sense that workers are valued and appreciated.

Request free information on methods to identify workplace needs of a diverse workforce 

 

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People often associate the topic of persuasion primarily with the concept of selling, but the importance of effective persuasion skills really pertains to every one of us regardless of our individual vocation. Every day each of us is involved to some degree in influencing the thoughts and actions of others. In fact, the path to success in life lies to a very large extent in gaining the cooperation of others. In this edition of Insights, we continue with our ongoing segment dedicated to the topic of persuasion.

   

A fundamental principle of persuasion is that people will not believe what you say if they don't believe you. Credibility is the cornerstone of successful persuasion. To get others to agree with your ideas or purpose, you must first be believed, and to be believed, you must be credible. The dictionary definition of credibility is "the quality or power of inspiring belief." That's kind of vague, but it's probably as specific as one can get in putting a label on it. Another way of saying it is that credibility is what makes you believable and, therefore, persuasive.

 

There is a range of factors that can contribute to a person's credibility, but two essential qualities are trustworthiness and competence.

 

Trustworthiness

 

Trustworthiness implies honesty and moral predictability and embodies a commitment to truth, fairness and objectivity. We usually equate trustworthiness with having clear moral standards and a willingness to stick to them. If someone trusts you, he or she will be willing to accept what you say as truth and proceed to evaluate your thoughts on their merits. If you don't have trust, however, people will tend to be suspicious of what you say and be too preoccupied with assessing the authenticity of your message to actively consider its significance.

 

Too often, people engage in trying to persuade without a strong commitment to honesty. They may bend the truth a little to try to gain a persuasive advantage. While a little white lie may be temporarily effective, if exposed, it may come back to haunt you. In fact, a major reason why some people aren't as effective in persuading as they could be is that their less than positive reputation for total honesty comes into play. Honesty is and will always be the best policy. Consider the negative stereotype of used car salesmen for example. Wouldn't their jobs be so much easier if they enjoyed the same level of trust as pharmacists?

 

One of the most important attribute of a true leader is the ability to persuade others to follow. According to James Kouzes and Barry Posner authors of Credibility, How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It the number one trait people are looking for in a leader is honesty. We know from experience that one failure to disclose an important truth can not only destroy a presentation or argument, but can ruin an entire career as well.

• To develop your trustworthiness, invest time in clarifying your values and examining your behavior in light of them. Make a commitment to consistently tell the truth.


• Build a reputation for ethical behavior, and if you make a mistake, be truthful about it. Always give deserved credit to others, and if you change your position on an issue, do it to maintain your integrity rather than for political reasons

Competence

 

The second critical component of credibility is competence. Competence is the exercise of expertise. It is how expertise is observes and measured. There is nothing so compelling as being advised on how a thing should be done by someone who has already done it. We want to listen and work with experts who clearly understand the scope of an issue or project and who know the right actions to take and right questions to ask. Experts enjoy a much higher degree of credibility than those who lack competence. As society's knowledge expands, we rely more and more on people who can demonstrate comprehensive expertise because they have credibility, i.e., they inspire belief, and as mentioned above, if we believe them, we are much more likely to be persuaded by them. In today's world there can be no credibility without competence.

 

Perceived competence comes from a blend of a person's education and experience. People with advanced doctoral degrees clearly have more credibility than those who don't have any degrees. At the same time, people who have "come up through the ranks" or have worked in diverse jobs within an industry are also considered to be experts. Such individuals usually possess more perceived competence than new college graduates. Expertise turns into competence when it is put to the test. A person earns his or her credibility as being competent by succeeding at assignments and projects over time. A track record of successfully applying knowledge and a willingness to continue learning increases perceived credibility.

• Competence can be developed through additional education and/or training, participating on high value projects to establish a track record, participation in meetings and by asking insightful questions.

Be Yourself

 

The first step in being more credible is being yourself. By knowing yourself and understanding your own fears, anxieties, goals, and aspirations, you will be able to relate more closely to others. You become more believable when you are honest and genuine. Some people will believe you right from the start. Others may need more time. They'll want to get to know you and need to see you keep your promises. They will want to know that you "walk the talk."

 

As credibility goes up, so will others' willingness to:

• Believe what you believe
• Value what you value
• Support your thoughts and ideas
• Help you achieve your goal
• Be open and hest with you

Do you have a question about your Credibility Factor? We will be glad to offer our suggestions. Contact us.