Adaptivity & Resilience: Two-hander
In This Episode
Want to learn how to activate your internal locus of control? Join us to learn about the Two-hander and add it to your leadership toolkit. Join the conversation on Twitter @LifeLabsLearn or on LinkedIn. Want to learn more? Head to LifeLabsLearning.com!
Transcript
Vanessa Tanicien: Hello, and welcome to The LeaderLab, the podcast powered by LifeLabs Learning, where we study what exceptional leaders do differently. Each week, we distill our findings into powerful tipping point skills, the smallest changes that tip over to make the biggest impact in the shortest time. The result? You become a better leader, faster. I'm your host, Vanessa Tanicien, a leadership trainer at LifeLabs Learning and a huge fan of Breaking Bad. I know, I know. I'm a couple years late to the party, but I'm honestly not going to apologize for it. Anyway, throughout these last few episodes, we are focusing on the macro scale of adaptivity and resilience, which is all about bouncing back from unexpected challenges faster and helping others do the same.
Vanessa Tanicien: Today, we have with us Massella Dukuly, coach and facilitator here at LifeLabs Learning, and she's also the host of the Keeping Score podcast. She also loves a very well-designed charcuterie board. Massella, so grateful to have you here.
Massella Dukuly: Thanks for having me, Vanessa.
Vanessa Tanicien: So, our last skill in the Adaptivity & Resilience series is called the two-hander. And Massella, I am just so excited for you to explain a little bit about what this is.
Massella Dukuly: Yeah, absolutely. A two-hander helps us organize our thoughts and better articulate our messages to others. How do we do that? Well, we decide what to focus on versus what not to focus on. What we can control versus what we can't control. What I don't know versus what I do know. In doing so, we activate what is called internal locus of control versus an external locus of control.
Vanessa Tanicien: I mean, anything that can help me with the whirlwind in my mind is much appreciated. But can you tell me, what is the definition of internal locus of control versus external locus of control? And can you also paint a picture of what that looks like in reality?
Massella Dukuly: Yeah, sure. So, when you think about internal locus of control, this is really taking ownership over what it is that you have autonomy over versus external locus of control, kind of just being really clear about what is out of your hands. So, let's take 2020. It's been pretty rough, can I say?
Vanessa Tanicien: I think I would say so. I had to just start laughing when you even mentioned the year. I think we'll be doing that for years. Anyway, yeah, keep going.
Massella Dukuly: I think so. But yeah, so I mean look, we can't control that COVID-19 is a thing, but what we can control is our approach to dealing with it and to ensuring that it doesn't spread as rapidly. Your internal locus of control might be wearing a mask, social distancing, getting tested if perhaps you know you've been exposed, staying away from those who might be immunocompromised. On the other hand, getting rid of it and creating a vaccine? For most of us, not necessarily within our control, so that'd be the external side of it.
Vanessa Tanicien: I know that we talk about thinking like a scientist, but that might be a little bit above all of our pay grades, creating that vaccine. But I want to move on into the world of work. Can you give me an example of where we can use this idea of the two-hander in general?
Massella Dukuly: Yeah. So I mean, we can use them in any number of places, from company-wide communication to everyday conversations. For example, I just recently used this in a one-to-one with a colleague that was feeling really overwhelmed by the pressure from a work situation, where they're being pulled into two directions by their manager and also by their direct reports. The list of pressures kept growing and growing, so we wrote them down and we organized them by things to address now and things that we could address later on.
Vanessa Tanicien: Ah, okay. So, it's basically taking this gigantic amount of pressure and putting it into boxes, so making some structure for something that was abstract.
Massella Dukuly: Yep, you got it. And then there's some really interesting research on this from the University of Southampton in the UK that was published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine a few years ago. Lead researcher Dr. Catharine R Gale and her colleagues did a massive study of more than 7,500 British adults, which is really, really huge, and they actually followed these individuals since birth. And they found that those who had shown an internal locus of control at the age of 10 were way less likely to show high levels of psychological stress.
Vanessa Tanicien: Wow. I'm thinking back to 10-year-old me and the only thing I was exerting control over was my Tamagotchis. But all kidding aside, can you just share a little bit about what's behind that psychologically?
Massella Dukuly: Yeah. So I mean, Gale is on record saying that she thought that a major explanation of why children with a more internal locus of control behave more healthily as adults is that they have greater confidence in their ability to influence outcomes through their own actions.
Vanessa Tanicien: That makes total sense. You no longer feel like a complete victim of circumstance. Okay. Well, I'd like to give the two-hander a spin, if that's alright with you.
Massella Dukuly: Oh, Vanessa. I thought you'd never ask. So, can you share a train of thought that you've been in recently that's got you feeling stressed?
Vanessa Tanicien: Whew. How much time do you have? Okay.
Massella Dukuly: I charge by the hour.
Vanessa Tanicien: Let me make this pretty clear. So, I'm working on a lot of projects internally at LifeLabs, this podcast being one of them but a number of other things. And I'm also about to be taking some time off and I have less time to do what I need to do, and it's honestly keeping me up at night. I don't know how I'm going to get everything done. So, the stress levels are a little higher than I need them to be right now.
Massella Dukuly: Mm. Got it. So as you can see, it's hard to stop the overwhelm and I'm sure we've all been there. So, to get started with our two-hander, what prompt will be more helpful for you to explore? Perhaps it's can't control versus what you can control, or maybe what you care about versus what you don't care about, et cetera.
Vanessa Tanicien: Hmm. Yeah, so thinking about what I can focus on and finish and what I can't focus on because I know I won't finish it, is probably going to be the most helpful prompt for me.
Massella Dukuly: Okay. Yeah. That sounds great. So, what you can focus on and finish versus what you can't. And let's start with what you can focus on, get a nice little dopamine burst going.
Vanessa Tanicien: Right. So, I can focus on getting these recordings edited and getting them to the right people, posting them in the right places, wrapping this up before I head out. I also can control the communication that I can put out around my projects and my updates. I also can control the amount of breaks, I guess, I can take to keep myself in a calmer state because I think I've been in an efficiency mode and the desire is to just work, work, work, work, work, but we all know that burnout's a thing. And I don't want to stress myself out to that point before taking some time off, even though that's what the time off is actually used to address.
Massella Dukuly: Okay. So, it sounds like there's the output of the content that you're creating, the creation of the content, but I love that you also brought up that you can control your own personal wellbeing throughout the process. What about the things that you feel like you can't focus on or won't finish?
Vanessa Tanicien: So, I can't focus on the things that have a couple of dependencies, so I can't make some of the outside folks respond to me quicker. I can't make the construction that makes me have to rerecord things stop happening, so I have to think around some action plans for that.
Massella Dukuly: Mm. Very human, very natural. I think that's for all of us. So in that domain, it's just the fact that things will happen when it comes to editing. You'll have to re-edit, you'll have to spend time, which seems to be just part of the game. So that's a two-hander, it's as simple as that. By the way, you don't need to just use two hands. Maybe it's two fingers, maybe you have a pro/con list. But how do you feel now, Vanessa? What do you think?
Vanessa Tanicien: I think it's nice to put it into buckets, because for the things that are within my internal locus of control bucket, I can really kind of double down and focus on that and let go of the rest.
Massella Dukuly: Yep. Wonderful. The idea here is that whenever you're stuck on something, you can pull out your two hands or whatever you're using and see what it is that you need to contrast, what it is that you are actually capable of controlling. And boom, internal locus of control activated.
Vanessa Tanicien: That is so empowering. Thanks for sharing that, Massella. And now that brings us to our experiment of the week. Massella, how should folks go about using this two-hander in their laboratory of life?
Massella Dukuly: The next time your thoughts feel jumbled, whether that's for a personal issue or a team-wide issue, pull out your two hands and decide what prompt you want to use. What you can versus what you can't control. What you will do versus what you won't do. What matters right now versus what doesn't matter at all. What's helpful versus what's unhelpful. What you care about versus what you won't care about. Whatever works for you. Once you've made that list, you'll be able to thoughtfully communicate this to others and create an action plan around the things that you have a locus of control over.
Vanessa Tanicien: Thank you so much, Massella. I've added yet another tool to my resilience toolkit, and I didn't know that my two hands could honestly be so powerful. And that brings us to the end of another episode of The LeaderLab. Make sure you subscribe so that you don't miss an episode, and share this with someone else so we can all benefit from having a few more stellar leaders in the world. Share your insights and feedback with us on Twitter or Instagram @LifeLabsLearning. If you'd like to bring training to your team, head on over to lifelabslearning.com. See you next time.
