How To Be More Effective At Work

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The Lefkoe Method has two processes that were designed specifically for use in organizations.

If you use them in your own firm, you will be more successful. If you use them at a company where you work, you will become a more effective and valuable employee.


Lefkoe Belief Process-Possibilities

The first process, the Lefkoe Belief Process-Possibilities, was created when I discovered during my years as a management consultant that employees on every level in every organization were sabotaging themselves and their organizations with many beliefs that started with the words: We (I) can’t…

Almost everyone in every organization—whether it be non-profit, for profit, or governmental—has a number of beliefs about what can’t be done and what must be done. Based on my experience I contend that these beliefs are an organization’s biggest barrier to innovation. In fact, they are probably the single biggest problem organizations face.

1. “We can’t out-source that job.”
2. “We can’t find the type of employees we need.”
3. “I can’t get the support I need.”
4. “We can’t possibly finish the project as quickly as the customer wants.”
5. “We can’t afford to do that.”
6. “That suggestion is crazy. It can’t possibly work.”

Sound familiar? If you work in an organization it is unlikely you get through an entire day without hearing, We (I) can’t…, at least once. And if the right someone (or lots of someones) believes something “can’t be done”, then the chances are slim to nil that it will get done.

Either this type of belief will stop a new initiative cold, or, if the organization manages to get it off the ground, the people with the belief will have a hard time supporting it, which will lead to the belief becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy.

When I first discovered the widespread prevalence of this type of belief, I realized that the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) could easily eliminate it. The problem was that it was impractical to train everyone in an organization to use the LBP. It would take much too much time. So I had to revise the Process so that anyone could learn to do it very quickly.

At some point I realized that if you were eliminating a belief whose source was not childhood and that was always the same—namely, something hadn’t worked before—I could create an easy-to-learn-and-use variation of the LBP that only eliminated We (I) can’t… beliefs.

I call this process the Lefkoe Belief Process-Possibilities because when you eliminate a We (I) can’t… belief you create possibilities that literally didn’t exist before. The LBP-P can eliminate a belief in less than five minute and can be taught to groups of people in only an hour or so.



Changing the culture of an organization

Right after I created the LBP in 1985, my associates and I did a lot of management consulting work. One of the most exciting assignments we had was helping many of the newly-formed telephone companies that had just split off from AT&T to create a new customer-driven culture.

For about a hundred years AT&T had a culture that was focused on internal measurements for improvement. Because the company had a monopoly and customers had no place else to go, it didn’t focus much on what customers wanted. AT&T gave them what it thought they needed. After AT&T split up into a number of “Baby Bells”, each operating company had to change its culture to focus more on customer service.

The Lefkoe Institute was brought in by seven of those companies to work with thousands of their employees. I created a process that had employees in all the workshops realize that what they did on a daily basis made perfect sense given the beliefs they had created about what to do and how to do it. They also came to realize that these beliefs made perfect sense given the environment that existed when the beliefs were formed.

So instead of telling the employees that what they were doing was wrong or that they needed to change, we validated their behavior and their beliefs.

Once they realized the many ways in which the “old environment” had changed, they were able to consciously create new beliefs about their jobs, policies and procedures that were consistent with the new, current environment. And obviously their behavior changed to be consistent with their new beliefs.

We were very successful both in helping change the behavior of employees and the culture in which they operated.



Important organizational distinctions

In addition to the two processes that were developed specifically for organizations, I have made several important distinctions that are very valuable for organizations, such as the distinction between first, second, and third order change.

Here is a short summary of the difference between the three types of change:

First order change is incremental and consists of improving what already is. It is change consistent with existing beliefs.

Second order change is more fundamental and consists of creating a new set of beliefs that make behavior possible that had been impossible before.

One way to distinguish between a second and third order change organization is that the former creates a new and better culture in which to operate; the latter creates a culture that recognizes that there is no “right” culture for all times. A third order change organization is able to easily create new cultures as new environments require.




If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://www.recreateyourlife.com/free where you can eliminate one belief free.

"Give me a hard copy right there." - Blade Runner

 

Typographic print inspired by the movie 'Blade Runner'

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