Four Seconds: All the Time You Need to Stop Counter-Productive Habits and Get the Results You WantIn February 2015, Peter Bregman, Wall Street Journal bestselling author of 18 Minutes, released his newest book, Four Seconds: All the Time You Need to Stop Counter-Productive Habits and Get the Results You Want. In it, he discusses how our normal reactions and responses could be limiting our success. So that’s where the “4 seconds” comes into play.

 

 

“Four seconds is the amount of time required to take a single breathe. That short pause is all you need to see where you’re going wrong and to make a little shift.” 1

 

Engagement requires that you live in the present moment. I encourage you to read Four Seconds, take a breath, and then begin to apply what you learn to your employee engagement efforts.

 

Below are my favorite insights from the book:

 

Setting goals isn’t always a beneficial habit. Identify and spend your time on areas of focus instead and you’ll get where you want to go more effectively. 2

 

Resist the temptation to fix everything. Sometimes, doing nothing at all works better than doing something. 3

 

Next time you find yourself in the spotlight, let go of the idea that you’re “performing.” Instead, allow yourself to experience the moment, and your performance will immediately go up. 4

 

Too busy to think, analyze, or reflect on your most important issues? Put the screens away, shut down the distracting noise, and create time every day for unfocused focus time. 5

 

Fight the urge to fill every empty moment in your day, especially if you need to extra-productive or creative for a task. Out best ideas typically come to us when we are being unproductive. 6

 

When you meet someone, let go of the impulse to define yourself by your role or title, or to come across in any particular way. Instead, take the risk to simply be yourself and notice how much connection that creates. 7

 

Contrary to your natural urge to defend ourselves and excuse our mistakes, taking the blame is the power move, strengthening your position, not weakening it. 8

 

Instead of getting frustrated with people when they don’t meet your expectations of how they ought to behave, adjust your expectations to more accurately reflect the behavior they regularly engage in. Learn how that individual operates and adjust your approach accordingly. 9

 

Our well-meaning attempts to make people feel better almost always backfire.  Try empathy instead; it communicates trust, and people feel most connected – and perform best – when they feel trusted. 10

 

Never meet someone’s negativity with your positivity. If you want to turn around someone’s attitude, try agreeing with them first. 11

 

Resist the temptation to view your job as separate from the jobs of others – that is, as a silo. From the view of a leader, a shareholder, or a customer, there is no such thing as a silo. Take responsibility for your colleagues’ work and commit to excellence – not of any one piece – bit of the whole. 12

 

Often the way we try to get people to change doesn’t work and ends up encouraging the exact behavior we’re trying to change.  Since we tend to conform to the behavior of the people around us – and that behavior tends to conform to the stories people tell and hear – create change by telling the right stories. 13

 

 

 

What are your thoughts on the insights above?  What insights from the book resonated the most with you?

 

 

1 Bregman, Peter. Four Seconds: All the Time You Need to Stop Counter-Productive Habits and Get the Results You Want. HarperOne, 2015. 4. Print.
2 ibid. p. 21.
3 ibid. p. 36.
4 ibid. p. 53.
5 ibid. p. 57.
6 ibid. p. 61.
7 ibid. p. 92.
8 ibid. p. 113.
9 ibid. p. 118.
10 ibid. p. 130.
11 ibid. p. 174.
12 ibid. p. 188.
13 ibid. p. 228.

 

 

Let’s Engage!

I’m Agent in Engagement Simpson…Gregory F Simpson.

Employee engagement is a critical mission. I hope I can count on your help! Subscribe to the RSS Feed to receive the latest intelligence/insights and/or register to make entries in the comments log.

Photo pf Gregory F SimpsonYou can follow me @agtinengagement.
Email me at g…@a…t.com.
Connect via LinkedIn at LinkedIn.com/in/GregoryFSimpson.
Learn more about me at gregoryfsimpson.com.

 

 

 

P.S.  First contact? Welcome to the Agent In Engagement community. Explore and join fellow employee engagement operatives in targeting a known thief – alias: Disengagement. Together we can bring this thief to justice and make the world a better place for all companies and their employees.

Other recent Agent in Engagement data/reports by Agent Gregory F Simpson: