Tired of Conflict and Drama? Use This Tool

Time to read: It's a long one. 1.5 minutes!

Arguing over walks and feeding your Covid pup? Design your alliance!

Hello Rebels!

As you start to slowly emerge from isolation and find your way back to life, the risk of conflict is great. Returning to the office. Kids back at school. Families with different values. Reuniting with friends and loved ones. Travel. The tool I'm going to share today is a game changer. I use it all the time.

(First, welcome all y'all who came over from Jason Lauritsen's group. Jason is an amazing public speaker, author and world changer. I'm lucky to call him a friend.)

Jason shared the Designed Alliance* process, and here's more to help you get the most out of it. For those of you who have been in the Corporate Rebel Community for a while, you can get the download here.

Here are three things that will make you a powerful Designed Alliance Ninja Wizard.

1. This process is about being in intentional relationship. It's about how you work together rather than what you'll do.

The mistake I see in partnerships and groups is starting with the work. For example, you volunteer for a committee at your children's school and at the first meeting, you do some intros and dive right into the details for the graduation party. Inevitably, someone steps on someone's toes or gets hurt when someone squelches their ideas. All of that drama is preventable with a little up-front conversation.

2. A designed alliance creates strong relationships and makes the actual work much easier. It's worth the up-front investment. Think about any team or group you've worked in. When relationships are sound, the work runs smoothly, even when you run into bumps. When people aren't getting along, it's almost impossible to do the work and hours of your time get wasted in navigating interpersonal landmines.

3. The designed alliance process works for big and small situations.

When my husband and I renovated our house, we used all 8 steps because the risk of marital disaster was great. The process went smoothly and we actually had fun. (And thanks to our alliance, I didn't have to care about dimmer switches.)

If a friend calls and you only have 10 minutes before your next meeting, a quick, "I have 10 minutes. If we need more time, I can call you later" counts as a designed alliance.

One of my clients used this process with her family (including small children) before a vacation and reported that, "It was the best vacation we've ever had."

I taught this process to my parents this weekend. They've had some change and an alliance will help things go smoothly.

Without conscious relationship, we bonk into each other's assumptions, try to read each other's minds, and give people what we think they want (which often isn't what they actually want).

As you start to get back to life, design your alliances early and often. Then hit reply to this email and tell me what happens. I love to hear your stories.

Do you work for a boss or a leader?

A micro newsletter! Testers register than one minute to read.

Leadership lessons at the lobby coffee pot

Last week, I was in San Diego for strategy meetings with my business mastermind (i.e. my coach and business peeps). Being from Minnesota, I was awake every morning at 5:00 while my CA roomies were still asnooze in their beds. Luckily, the hotel served tea very, very early so I found my way to the lobby each morning to grab some caffeine and catch up on email.

At the coffee pot, I met a hotel employee, Luis. One morning, I commented to Luis that he seemed to really enjoy his job. This is what he said, "I love working here. We don't have bosses. We have leaders. They don't just sit in their offices and order us around. They come out here to help us."

Luis got me thinking about you. We've established in the past two weeks that you are a leader regardless of your role. Many of you are also bosses. If you are a great leader, you will also be a great boss. We've all had great bosses. (If you haven't, call me now!)

It doesn't work the other way around. We've all known or worked for sucky bosses who weren't leaders (that NEVER happened to me in my corporate days).

Luis pointed out important differences between the two so you can see where you (and your boss) are behaving as leaders or, ugh, as bossy-pants:

1. Bosses sit in their corner offices and tell people what to do. Leaders inspire the team.
2. Bosses have positional power and use it. Leaders have power by virtue of respect, trust, and affection.
3. Bosses micromanage and want everything done "right." Leaders delegate and play to people's strengths.
4. Bosses take credit. Leaders give credit and praise generously and often.
5. Bosses stand in the limelight. Leaders fade so that other people can have success and attention for their accomplishments.

Think of leaders you've loved and bosses you've hated. What can you learn about your own leadership (or bossy-ness) from them?

Lead on!

Christina

Mermaids and leadership. Two great things that go great together!

It's a short one this week! 1 minute, tops!

A real life mermaid leader

Did you know there are professional mermaids? It's true. There are people who make a living being a mermaid. For reals.

Mermaids are leaders. They take responsibility for their worlds.(Recognize the theme from past couple of weeks?) It matters that they show up with their scaly tails on time and sit still in a pool for 2 hours delighting mesmerized children. They take responsibility for the joy they put into the world. They are leaders.

So, let's remember the core of the past two rebelicious newsletters:

Leaders take responsibility for their worlds.

It doesn't matter if you are a CEO, a stay-at-home mom, a manager, an administrative assistant. a student, or your mail carrier.

Leadership is not defined by your position, test. Leadership is defined by your perspective. It matters that you show up, do your best, and take responsibility for yourself and your world.

Let's look at a few examples:

Leaders decide what kind of energy they want to put into traffic.You have a choice to flip the bird to the person who just cut you off or to assume they are doing the best they can and smile in solidarity knowing that tomorrow, it could be you.

• Leaders clean up the messes they create and admit when they are wrong.
• Leaders treat cashiers, servers, and janitors kindly.
• Leaders know that they are not responsible for everything and everyone.
• Leaders build relationships and consider other people's needs. You have opportunities to lead every time you go to the grocery store, in every meeting, on every team you serve, and in every class you take.

What will you do this week to take responsibility for your world?

Lead on!

Christina

Stressed out at the idea of "taking responsibility?" Read this.

Estimated read time: 2 minutes

A real response from a bonafide reader!

It's been exciting this week to receive your responses to last week's question: What does "leaders take responsibility for their world" mean to you? (Look for YOUR response below).

You responded with many amazing and beautiful ways you take responsibility for the food we eat, your families, your work, the safety of our beauty products, and generating love and peace. It's humbling to see all the ways the group that receives this rebelicious newsletter is having an impact. I'm honored to be among you.

You work in IT, the finance industry, healthcare, regulatory affairs, coaching, and education (to name a few of your worlds). You have families, parents, pets, homes and communities. Each of you is taking responsibility in ways large and small "in the spirit of making a better universe" (and I quote one your brilliant comments).

Today is about the "responsibility" of leadership.

One of my clients was struggling (fretting would be a more accurate word) with the "responsibility" part of his leadership. He tends toward "over-responsibility" and "responsible for everything" which left him feeling pretty daunted by "Leaders take responsibility for their world."

I wouldn't be the corporate rebel coach if I didn't give you strategies and ways to process this for yourself. Here's what my client and I created together in our session in case you worry about over-giving, too (shared with his permission, of course).

1. Let go of the illusion that you can control everything. A need to control leads to over-giving, over responsibility, and burn out. Burn out ain't good for anyone's world.
2. Be responsible for the talents you've been given. As you saw in the list above, this amazing group has a wide-variety of talents. Do YOUR work. And let other people do their work (this is the part where you get to let go - guilt free - of many, many things).
3. Discern what's yours and choose where you put your time and energy. Trust that you are doing enough, that you are having an impact, and what you do every day matters.
4. Think about how to expand your "world" without succumbing to #1 or #2.

Pat yourself on the back. You're doing great things in your world. You really are.

Christina

The shortest newsletter on the planet

Time to read: 20 short seconds

My tween rocking her leadership!

Today, I have one question for you. Below is a definition of leadership that I use in my own life and with my clients.

Leaders take responsibility for their worlds.

It's both simple and profound. What is your world and what does it mean to take responsibility for it?

We'll dive into leadership more next week.

Ponder away!

Christina