Information flow: how to transform a negative impact to positive and productive energy

 Can't listen? Here's the transcript: 

Today’s podcast is about information flow: getting and giving information in a way that’s empowering, and sifting out any negative energy that can naturally come with communications, particularly in stressful times.

I’m recording this episode in May and many of us are still dealing with ramifications from Stay-At-Home. Some of my clients’ businesses are doing great and are of course adjusting how they manage aspects of operations. And I have other clients who are hit hard by this and are implementing pay cuts, lay-offs, furloughs.

But whether it’s a global pandemic or another crisis, we’ve all dealt with stressful times at work. Granted, the pandemic is on the high end of “stressful times at work” – but in a basic sense, we’ve all dealt with crisis and stress.

In my first podcast episode, I talked about being centered – and how critical this is to leadership. It’s critical on normal days, with the normal stuff we have coming at us, the normal-big or norman-petty dynamics we have to react to and move forward.

But in a crisis, being centered is absolutely necessary.  It’s like being tossed about in a storm and you need to respond to what’s coming at you with a clear head, confidence and trust in yourself that you will figure it out.

Last week, I had a coaching session with one of my clients. His business was hit hard. Some of their clients were deferring work, some clients cancelled, prospects put things on hold. It was a lot to take in and adjust to. His boss called him about moving faster on things, delivering sales results that the business sorely needed. But his boss’ energy was pressurizing – so my client was pressured and felt the worry and stress that came with it.

When I talked with my client, we replayed the conversation. His boss’s direction about increasing productivity and having more touch-points with the team was good direction… there are times when we need more touch-points, more communication so that everyone can have up to date information and the business can make necessary, timely decisions.

But the pressurizing energy that came with the message of increased communication resulted in my client feeling flustered – and of course, pressured. He knew he needed to convey the message to his team – to sell more and faster – but because he was flustered, he couldn’t figure the right approach and messaging. He was knocked off-center and couldn’t think straight; he was kind of paralyzed which is ironic because that’s the exact opposite thing his boss wanted. To compound it, his boss told him to just order the team to Do-this and Do-That, which also didn’t feel right to my client.
In stressful times, ordering people to do things can seem like the right thing to do, as if there’s no time for conversation. But “ordering people” doesn’t work out well, except for rare emergencies like the building is literally on fire.  

We’ve all had bad experiences with communication like this. We’ve either been the one who has delivered a message with the best of intentions but it actually ended up not having the effect we wanted, or we’ve been on the receiving end of a difficult message and negative energy. We also know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of bad communications and we then have to transmit that information to others.

Here’s the thing: as leaders, it’s imperative we get the information we need to do our jobs (however we get it - - from the news, from the Board, our boss, a colleague or customer), and we need to be aware of the energy in which the information is coming to us because that energy is more impactful than we realize. If we’re not aware, we end up transmitting that negative energy to others which leads to disengagement and lower productivity.

So how do we interrupt the negative energy flow?

First: we have to be aware of how this information is coming to us and how it’s affecting us - - We can get aware by asking “How do I feel about this?”

This of course means we have know when to pause in order to ask this question. Here’s when to pause: when  you’re anything but centered (centered = trusting yourself, having confidence, peace of mind, and focus). That’s when you ask yourself, “How do I feel?”

By naming the feeling, the feeling loses its strength, which means we can have that feeling rather than the feeling having us. In other words, you can begin to influence it instead of it influencing you.


Here’s another massive leverage point you have as a leader and as a human being: Your Thoughts (your opinions, mindset, beliefs, viewpoints). What is the corresponding Thought that goes with the Feeling? Is that Thought something you can let go of? Can you bring in a new thought that will help you to reclaim being centered, and therefore communicate with supreme effectiveness?

Pausing for just a few seconds to get clear about how you are feeling and what you are thinking will re-center you. And when you’re centered, you have the confidence, focus, trust and peace of mind to communicate effectively.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned in leadership is – if at all possible - to Not communicate when I’m uncentered. Or, for the times when I have to communicate and I know I’m not centered, I try to be very mindful of the impact I’m having. That said, life happens, and when it does, I try to have grace with myself.

A recent example of when I wasn’t aware and my worry got mixed in with my communications: This is a parenting example but if you’re a parent, you know that parenthood is an ongoing practice in leadership.

To set the stage: I live in a neighborhood with a lot of tall, old trees. Our yard has 5 of these trees, which is really pretty and lots of shade in the summer but it scares the hell out of me when there’s a bad storm I know some of these big trees fall in really bad storms.. so when one of these storms come in, we gather the family on the ground floor.

 The other night, my husband and I were in the family room with our youngest daughter and he said, “There’s a bad storm coming.” That’s literally all he said, in a totally casual tone. I of course got nervous and started asking a bunch of questions: “When is the storm hitting us?” “How long will it last?” “Do we need to bring the family to the basement steps?”

I wasn’t paying much attention to my youngest (8 years old). She got the information the way I did so I didn’t think much of how this would affect her. I wasn’t aware of my anxiety until I decided to tell my older 2 daughters, which is when I calmed down, shifted how I was feeling and thinking about the situation, and gave them a very matter-of-fact message that a storm is coming and we might need to move downstairs at some point. They reacted in kind: in a very matter-of-fact kind of way.

My youngest, however, was different because she got the information about the storm with my anxiety so she was definitely nervous. She doesn’t normally get nervous about storms but she was this time.

This is how I knew my negative energy transferred to her:

• She woke me up 3x in the middle of the night asking if we needed to go into the basement
• As the storm moved through the following day, she repeatedly asked if we were okay and if we needed to go into the basement.
• She’s normally great about focusing on schoolwork but needed a lot of reminders to stay focused… until the storm passed.

My older 2 daughters kept an eye on the storm, hung out a little more downstairs, and otherwise continued with life like normal.

This is how it goes with leadership: how we say something - how a leader responds and the energy we bring – is far more impactful than we realize. In fact, the energy we bring is more impactful than what we actually say.