Being, Doing, and Having

The Being, Doing, and Having that are required for success at the new job to which you are being promoted.
be well,
Dwika-ExecuTrain



Being-->Doing-->Having in the Real World
by:Steven Cerri

I know you will find these examples especially interesting. So please read to the end.

Example #1.
Lets first look at a hypothetical case in which we will assume that you are an engineer. In general, we might be able to say that your structure for Being, Doing, and Having is as I have described below, (remember this is just an example).


The Being-->Doing-->Having... of you, currently, as an engineer.

The Being
Lets say you are an engineer.
You have been an engineer for four or five years.
You like working alone.
You don't like conflict.
You are proud of your work and you do not like to be watched or
micromanaged.
You do not like being "told" what to do.

The Doing
You have been doing engineering tasks, pretty much as an individual
contributor.
Maybe you have been programming code.
Maybe you have been designing aircraft or spacecraft.
Maybe you have been installing computer systems.
You like solving challenges on your own.
You like thinking creatively.

The Having
You have been receiving a salary.
You have the title of Engineer Level II
You have an cubicle, not an office.
You do not have a company-paid cell phone.

The opportunity
Your manager has just decided that you are management material. You have been completing your technical tasks very well and your boss believes that if you can do your own technical work well you can certainly manage a small group of people doing the same work. Besides, you are not going to be promoted to management full-time. You will be half-time manager and half-time engineer, continuing to perform your technical work. How difficult can that be?

You decide to go for it!
You decide to accept the promotion. How difficult can it be as a part-time manager and part-time engineer doing what you have been doing? Besides you will be managing a competent group of people, and it is a relatively small task. No problem.

Now lets look at the Being, Doing, and Having that are required for success at the new job to which you are being promoted.

The Being-->Doing-->Having... of the NEW job.

The Being
It is important to like to work with people... not alone.
Communicating with people about what they are doing is not "telling them
what to do".
You are in charge (sometimes you must tell others what to do).
Being comfortable with conflict is a requirement.
Being comfortable with uncertainty is a requirement.
Being comfortable with ambiguity is a requirement.
Being comfortable with different personalities is a requirement.
Your sense of pride in your personal work is not necessarily shared in the
same way and to the same level by other people for their personal work.
Being comfortable managing people who are older AND younger than
you are is important.

The Doing of the job
You will have to coordinate efforts of the whole team.
Some people will be doing what you have been doing and others will be
performing unfamiliar tasks.
You will be required to initiate conflict, at times, and resolve it as well.
Some of what you will do will not be creative, will not be stimulating, and it
will be routine paper work, seemingly unrelated to your engineering degree.
In certain cases you will be telling people "what to do".
In certain situations you will be perceived as a micromanager.

The Having of the job
You will have more prestige.
You will receive an increase in salary.
You will be given an office, not a cubicle.
You will have more respect.
You will have more responsibility.
You will have a company-paid cell phone.
You will have the title of Engineering-Manager Level I

The Outcome: You decide to take the promotion because:
1. You ignore the issues around Being or perhaps you do not even know they exist.
2. You assume you can DO whatever the new position requires you to DO.
3. You are mostly focused on what you will HAVE in the new position.

However, conflict between the "Being of you as an engineer" and the "Being of you as a manager" leads to conflict between the "Doing as an engineer" and the "Doing as a manager".

Here is how the conflicts show up. When the way you want to be, especially at your best, as the engineer you want to be, does not align with the way you must be as the engineer/manager, then you won't be "comfortable", "willing", "motivated", and "inspired" to do what you must do in order to be successful in the new position. You will "avoid uncomfortable situations". You will be seen to "procrastinate" regarding certain tasks you are required to perform. Your manager will tell you that you "seem not to be stepping up to the plate".

It is important to understand that "Being" rules and runs this process. "Being" wins the contest between Being and Doing and even Having.

And one more thing... the bridge between Being and Doing is "knowledge". Without knowledge, Being cannot be transformed into Doing.

In fact, I will expand the Being, Doing, Having cycle with the graphic at the end of this paragraph. It is important to understand that this is a giant feedback loop with all the different components feeding back on the other components. Each component in this sequence can affect your success. However, the farther to the right you are in this sequence, the less impact any change process or training or coaching will have. The closer to the left side you are, the more powerful the change process. But in all cases Being drives the cycle. The example below will make this clear.



BEING<-->knowledge & information<-->HAVING<-->experience<-->HAVING
|<----------------------------------------->|<--------------------------->|
|<---------------------------------------------------------------------- -->|



A simple example.
Here is what I mean. I will use a simple example. Some people want to exercise regularly. They know what they must DO in order to exercise. Either jog or go to a gym or swim, or walk. There is no shortage of things to be "Doing" that will provide exercise. So the Doing part is pretty clear.

The information part is the bridge between Being and Doing. The "information portion" indicates that there are many benefits brought about by exercise. The information indicates how to best exercise for specific benefits (Doing and Having). There is plenty of knowledge and information available.

But it is the Being that determines if the exercise is going to take place. Motivation and the drive to accomplish something exists in Being. Therefore, if a person doesn't have a state of Being that values exercise, accepts the information about exercise, and wants the benefits of exercise, it won't happen.

Here is another example.
Lets assume that a person wants to be good at giving presentations. This is a form of Having. It is the desire to be able to give presentations comfortably to a group.

Lets also assume that the person is extremely fearful of giving presentations to audiences larger than ten people. They sweat. Their heart beats as if it will jump out of their chest. They stutter and stammer. They just cannot do it.

Explaining to the fearful person, the techniques and best practices regarding "How to give good presentations", will not make the uncomfortable feelings go away. Telling the person to "imagine the audience as naked" does not work either. (A really dumb idea!) Information and knowledge do not seem to remove their fear and anxiety associated with giving presentations.

(Usually, the only time information is sufficient to seamlessly change Doing is when the Being needed to implement the new information into new Doing is aligned with the previous Being. For example, assume you are a programmer and you have been using a programming language for several years. A new language comes along and you learn how to use it and you seamlessly transfer your work to the new language and move forward with it. There is no resistance because the Being needed to use the old language is aligned with the Being needed to use the new language. This seldom is the case when we are dealing with communication, management, and leadership, those less "intellectually" oriented aspects of our work.)

You all probably have something in your life that fits this model. You know what you "should" do. You know what you "can" and "could" do. And you "want" to do it, at least on an intellectual level. But, you just cannot seem to bring yourself to DO it.

That is why those of you who have taken my courses or received my coaching will often hear me say that knowledge and even practice in a safe class environment are not sufficient for success or change when it comes to communication, management, and leadership.

In the example here, the best approach is to start at the source... modify the person's state of being "around the concept and process of giving presentations." For sure I would give knowledge about how to give good presentations. But I would be most focused on what would be necessary to provide a proactive state of being associated with giving presentations. (Is this making sense?)

One more example for good measure.
I am now going to give you a very personal example of how this works. Up until about ten or twelve years ago, I was very afraid of heights. I mean very afraid.

It wasn't all heights. Only heights above about 20 to 30 feet. Place me 50 feet above the ground, even in a room with a picture window, and I would not go close to the window. If I were walking in the "inside" halls of an Embassy Suites Hotel (they are open to the inner foyer) and I was above the second floor, I was petrified.

Now couple that with the fact that as my daughter was moving through her high school years she was involved in snow boarding. It became clear to me that if I wanted to spend some vacation and fun time with my daughter during the winter months, it would be useful for me to learn how to snow board.

Which I did. But snow boarding requires riding lifts. Sometimes 50 feet or more above hard-packed snow, in a lift chair that has no rail in front. Now we are talking really petrified. So what was I to do?

It was clear to me that my fear was "held" in my state of being. It did not matter how much "information" or "knowledge" I acquired. It didn't matter how many times I went up a little higher and then a little higher, I was still afraid of heights. No amount of information, no amount of "practice" could counter-act the state of Being that structured and maintained my fear of heights.

Finally, using the techniques that I now use in my coaching and training programs, I modified my state of being in relation to heights.

And I remember the first snow boarding trip I took with my daughter after I "adjusted" my state of being. I was riding a chair lift that was at least 50 feet above the snow. There was no rail in front of me. I remember looking over the edge of the chair at the snow covered ground below and actually waiting for the panic to come flooding in.... nothing. I just observed. Along the way up the slope I leaned back and put my snow board and feet over the edge of the chair.

When I got off the lift the lift operator looked at me and she said, "I don't think I've ever seen anyone so relaxed on a chair lift before.

For years I had attempted to alleviate my fear of heights by knowledge, information, and practice being high up (Doing). None of that worked. It disappeared when I finally focused on "Being".

What does this have to do with engineering and engineering management?
The bottom line is that this is way we are wired. This is the way the human nervous system is wired.

For managers, engineers, and executives to move through the world believing that Doing and Having are all there is, is exactly why people get promoted and then do not Do what they are required to Do by the new position. It is especially the reason why engineers get promoted and then fail and stumble. It is because their default state of being does not align with the state they must have in the new position. It is because their default state of being is not their most flexible and resilient state. Engineers, managers, and executives who do not understand this are doomed to "bump against the wall" again and again like a robot with a malfunctioning electric eye.

When you see an engineer or engineering manager (or maybe even yourself), Doing a behavior that you or they know ought to be replaced with a more effective behavior, you can be certain that the less effective behavior is driven by a miss-aligned state of being. (In certain cases there may be missing information, but if information is missing and the correct state of Being is in place, the person will seek out the necessary information proactively.)

How does this apply to your job now?
In the current economic environment, companies are laying people off, increasing the work load of those remaining employees, cutting costs, AND trying to keep their best employees on-board and motivated.

And it is reasonable to ask, "How exactly do you do that?" "How do you keep your best employees motivated and inspired in these economic and emotional times?"

The answers are in the concepts I have presented here.

It is not about Having... just because some employees have jobs while their colleagues are being let go, is no guarantee the remaining employees will be motivated.

It is not about Doing... most organizations are asking their remaining employees to do more and pick up the slack left by those who have been let go. They are doing more than they want to already.

And Being... well, very few managers and executives even know about it, let alone consider it. And yet, the Being, Doing, Having equation is the key to keeping your best and brightest on-board and motivated in these challenging times.

A request!

Human Beings Really Are...
We human beings are fascinating creatures. We have the ability to be more capable than we can imagine. The potential for that capability, however, does not rest in what we do. It begins with who we are.

Be well,
Steven