- COO of early stage company expressing his concern about hiring consultants

from Wikipedia – Mission creep is the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals,  often after initial successes. Mission creep is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs.

Many companies are reluctant to hire consultants because they fear “Consultation Creep” where after a consultant comes in and does a diagnosis and some initial work, that they will find too much that needs fixing at too great a cost and that will require a commitment and focus from people inside the company that is unrealistic.

From the consultant’s side, he or she is concerned with making the proper recommendations for which they have been engaged and with the success of those recommendations.  As a consultant does a diagnosis, he or she will often uncover key factors that if unaddressed will make the consultation ineffective.  In other words, the consultant will discover that what a company wants is not what it needs and if it fails to address what it needs, not only will the consultation not be a success, but the company may not succeed.

What is needed to correct this?

After the failure of the Bay of Pigs, J.F.K. apparently spoke to President Eisenhower and asked his input on why that incident failed so miserably.  Eisenhower said something to the effect of: “Your goal was okay, but you didn’t have a process for making sound decisions under pressure.”  Supposedly J.F.K. took these words to heart and because of them was better able to make it through the Cuban Missile Crisis.

To be effective, consultations need a process as well, or else they are likely to “creep” and end up in failure.  For that process to be successful, it requires full buy in and commitment from a decision maker and one or several influencers within the company (i.e. individuals that others will follow).

I have called the process the 12 Steps of Consultants Synonymous, because similar to the 12 Step of Alcoholics Anonymous, they represent a step by step approach that if followed will prevent the consultation from falling “off the proverbial wagon” into high cost, time delays and unsustainable results. Because just like Mission Creep, Consultation Creep is an addiction to doing much more than is asked of them.

These 12 Steps of Consultants Synonymous will help any company and consultant keep a consultation on track. Don’t hire one without them.

Step 1. Problem Definition
What’s going on in a company? The consultant meets with the principle decision makers and key executives to see what they feel their biggest challenges (problems) are, what they think their greatest opportunities are, what they think their greatest strengths and weaknesses are, and what they think needs to change to meet their challenges effectively and take advantage of their opportunities.

Step 2. Assessment of Outcomes
What outcomes does the company want to achieve? The consultant puts together the input from Step 1 and reaches a consensus about these outcomes with the principle decision makers.

Step 3. Available and Not Available Approaches
Consultations/actions are selected that are necessary to reach those outcomes, e.g. structural reorganization, team building, strategic planning, business planning, financial planning, etc. and the availability and accessibility of the resources to achieve those within the company and what will need to be added?

Step 4. Strategic Planning of Consultation
The order and sequence of different consultations/actions is established. Who is going to do what, when, and where is determined.

Step 5. Education and Involvement of Key Executives
The consultant educates the main decision makers on agreed upon outcomes, agreed upon strategies to achieve those outcomes and the people within company best suited to execute those strategies and then obtains a commitment to action from these decision-makers.

Step 6. Education and Involvement of Relevant Staff
The key executives and/or consultant explain what is going to happen and why and why now and then obtains a commitment from the people who are going to do what is called for.

Step 7. Fine Tuning
The consultant assists the company in adjusting and modifying approaches to fit the situation as it evolves.

Step 8. Does the Consultation Work?
The consultant checks to see that the approach(es) is producing the desired results (i.e. moving the company towards agreed upon outcomes).

Step 9. Monitoring Mechanism
The consultant determines a way to periodically measure and make changes to keep everything on course and gains commitment from key executives and managers with implementing that monitoring system.

Step 10. Continuity
The consultant assists the company to develop a program to keep the company continuing and following through with changes. There needs to be some kind of scheduled periodic follow-up to ensure follow-through (turning changes into habits).

Step 11. Maintenance
The consultant helps the company to develop a way to make necessary changes when called for part of corporate culture (turning changes into culture), so that the company is self-reliant.

Step 12. Disengagement
The consultant helps the company to develop a way to know when the company is using changes on their own without the consultant’s help. An early warning system is developed for a company to know when problems are arising, to nip them in the bud and address them.

Additional Resources:

• Kennedy Consulting Research & Advisory

2. Cheating on his wife tells you how he deals with any situation he doesn’t like. You are evidence of his avoiding dealing with unpleasant situations head on. This means that he’s likely to resort to some devious behavior with you if the two of you encounter relationship problems.

3. Hiding is exhausting. Having to keep your relationship a secret can attack your self-esteem and cause you to miss out on one of the wonderful aspects of a relationship. Walking together freely and radiantly through the world can fill you with the glow of being with someone who is proud to be with you.

4. He’s got his cake and is eating it, too. He has a legitimate married relationship that helps his public persona and he has an illegitimate one with you to make up for what heâs missing in his marriage. As appreciative as he sounds, many women who are involved with married men come to resent his having the best of both worlds, when she has the least.

5. Can you love someone who is so disrespectful of his wife? The existence of your relationship with a married man tells you how little he respects his wife by lying to her instead of being a man and telling her he wants out.

6. Lose his respect and it’s over. Even though he’s the one who pursued you. Even though he’s the one that made it difficult to say “No.” And even though he tells you how wonderful you are. At some level, he’s going to have trouble respecting you for settling for such a flawed relationship. Like the Groucho Marx joke, “He may not want to be of a relationship that would have him as a partner.”

7. You’re not a home wrecker, just an accomplice. Like it or not, you are a willing participant in a man violating his vows and betraying the trust of his wife — not to mention grossly disappointing his children and making it difficult for them to see him as a role model.

8. You’re kidding yourself. Despite his reassuring you how much you mean to him, his not ending his relationship with his wife in an above-board and respectful way — and not beginning a legitimate relationship with you — are actions that speak louder than words.

9. Beware the guilt boomerang. Many men (and women) have difficulty accepting full responsibility for their deceitful actions. Human nature finds it easier to blame than to accept shame. If he is caught by his wife or conscience, don’t be surprised if he tries to blame you and get you to take the fall.

10. Time is too precious to waste. Ever notice how quickly the years go as you get older? Because it’s convenient and comfortable, a relationship with a married man can go on for a long time — and before you know it, eat up the precious time you might have had in a healthy relationship with a chance of flourishing. When people who have been involved with married men finally move on, they often regret having wasted the time in a dead-end affair.

Dr. Goulston is the author of The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall in Love Again…and Stay There (Perigee, 2002).

Also:

• How Prenups Kill Romance
• What Causes Divorce? How to Prevent It
• Couples Therapy made Simple

1. They both went viral
2. They launched a career for each of these formerly unknown, very plain and even unattractive people (didn’t the audience, judges, you and I laugh at them at first?)
3. Before you and I helped them go viral and before we (and the audience on the video) heard them sing, we were smug, saw ourselves as superior to them and saw them as foolish to think they could impress us.  And then they hoisted all of us on our own petard of “nothing is possible” cynicism and slingshot us into the hidden, but still aching to believe “anything is possible” hopeful part of our personalities.

How did Susan Boyle and Paul Potts accomplish this? They “got into our listening” and heard our ache to believe underneath our skeptical reluctance and cynical refusal to give it a try.

Check out the following video to learn more about how to “get into their listening” (or what we refer to as “Their There”) if you want to engage employees, customers, clients, investors, vendors, your spouse, kids, family or your community:

And when you’ve done that… you’ve gone viral.

To find out more about our program: “Going Viral” contact: mgoulston@markgoulston.com or by tel: 310.998.1150 or john@ullmen.com and by tel: 310.444.3915.

Election 2010: “Cynics’R'Us”

Start by circling all of the items that apply to you.

1. I find myself less eager to go back to work or to resume my chores after a weekend.
2. I feel less and less patient and/or sympathetic listening to other people’s problems.
3. I ask more “closed-ended questions to discourage dialogue with friends and co-workers than “open-ended” ones to encourage it.
4. I try to get away from people as soon as I can.
5. My dedication to work, exercise, diet, and friendships is waning.
6. I am falling further behind in many of the responsibilities in my life.
7. I am losing my sense of humor.
8. I find it more and more difficult to see people socially.
9. I feel tired most of the time.
10. I don’t seem to have much fun anymore.
11. I feel trapped.
12. I know what will make me feel better, but I just can’t push myself to do it and I’ll “Yes, but” any suggestions that people make.

Now, add up the number of items you circled, and check your score below:

• 0 to 3: More exhausted than stressed out
• 4 to 6: Beginning to stress out
• 7 to 9: Possibly stressed out
• 10 to 12: Probably stressed out

What Causes Stress?

Stress develops when you have more pressure on you than you are able to handle. By itself, stress is not necessarily bad or harmful. In fact, some stress may be necessary to help get you motivated and mobilized.

It’s when stress turns into distress that you begin to really suffer. Distress occurs when you shift from focusing on a goal in your life to the goal of alleviating the distress in any way you can regardless of the negative consequences it might cause. Rather than proactively preventing problems, you begin to react to the circumstances around you.

While such reactions help you feel better for the moment, they don’t improve your life in the long run. For instance, you may procrastinate doing something because you believe you’ll be able to handle it next week. But the more you procrastinate, the more difficult it is to eventually do what you’re putting off.

To make matters worse, the more you fall behind, the more you lower your confidence and other people’s confidence in you.  As their respect and esteem for you falls, so too does your self-respect and self-esteem.

The less confident and worthwhile you feel, the less pressure it takes to feel stress and then distress in the first place, thus repeating the cycle each time you experience these feelings.

Coping With Stress

Once stress becomes distress, it’s like trying to stop a 747 taxiing down the runway. It’s much easier to stop it before it moves too far.

You are most motivated to deal with stress when you’re faced with the negative consequences of a hasty, impulsive action that you took to deal with distress. The next time this happens, resist the temptation to beat up on yourself. Instead, take out an index card and write down, “If had this stressful situation to deal with again, what I would have done differently is – - -.”

Put the index card in your purse or wallet and commit to acting differently when you’re faced with stress. You may not actually change your behavior during your next stressful situation, but sooner or later you will. In fact, just reacting to the current situation in this constructive fashion will help you feel better immediately.  Over time you will discover that the best antidote to stress and prevention of distress is taking the actions that you have written down on your index card.

Don’t ask a “reverse cognitive bias” thinker to come up with “goals.”

Not too long ago I spoke to Frank, the CEO of a $2 billion health products company, “How often do you use the word ‘goals’ in your management meetings?”

He answered with a revealing chuckle, “Always.”

I replied, “I take it from that chuckle that the room doesn’t exactly jump all over it with ‘when do we get started’ enthusiasm.”

“No.  I don’t think any of them have that kind of enthusiasm.  There are even several who have a ‘deer in the headlights’ look when I bring up the topic of goals,” he replied.

I explained: “Frank. You use the word ‘goals’ naturally, because as a successful CEO, your mind has a ‘forward cognitive bias’ that enables you to keep your eye on the horizon and articulate a compelling vision and then translate it into a strategy to get there. Most people in a company, who will never make it to CEO, have a ‘reverse cognitive bias’ in their thinking.  That means that their minds are more comfortable reacting to something after someone else like you has laid it out. It also means that the word ‘goals’ doesn’t compute in these non-forward bias, reactive individuals.”

“That’s very true,” Frank interjected, “in fact I can tell those people with leadership potential by their ability to look forward. And I must admit, we’re challenged right now in having any such individuals.  As you say, nearly all of them listen and then react to what I come up with.  What do I do about that?”

“First, realize that you have a serious succession challenge if you have few if any who can look forward and you will need to address that,” I answered and then continued, “but second, you will probably gather more enthusiastic participation and possibly even innovation if you frame the way you begin a meeting to match their ‘reverse cognitive bias’ minds instead of expecting them to be naturally forward thinkers.

To do that, ask your managers at the beginning of the next meeting: ‘a) Imagine that our meeting to discuss x agenda is over and you’re returning to your desks, your emails and your other work; b) Then imagine your saying to yourself, ‘That was a very productive meeting.  I now clearly understand what our strategic imperatives are and why they’re so important.  Furthermore I have a clear idea of what my department and specifically I need to do to make that happen and I am really pumped up to do those things; c) Can you all imagine having that reaction when you leave this meeting in 90 minutes? (hopefully they will nod in agreement); d) If so, then tell me what happens during this meeting to cause that reaction to happen.’”

“Then use their responses to guide how you lead that meeting,” I concluded.

When you cause your people to imagine that positive end result and then ask them to react to it by detailing what would need to occur to make it happen, you not only tailor your directive communication to their “reverse cognitive bias” mind, you set the stage for them to participate more fully in the meeting.

And as we all know, the more you get a team to participate in defining a desired outcome and strategy, the more inclined they are to participate in its execution.

* The above is adapted from a brief TED-like talk I gave at Big Task Weekend on September 30, 2010.  The essence of  my comments are that to persuade people in these “resistant to being sold times” it’s not enough to “get where people are coming from,” you need to “get into their listening.”  By that I mean not just what they listen to, but also how they listen.

If the above speaks to you, my partner, Dr. John Ullmen from the UCLA Anderson School of Management, and I have developed the Persuade Without Pushing program to teach you and your people how to sell your ideas, products and services in a post-selling world.  To find out more about our 2 – 4 hour presentation that will give you a taste as well as many immediately implementable takeaways contact either me at: mgoulston@markgoulston.com or Dr. Ullmen at: john@ullmen.com.
.

With business leaders’ public — and private — behavior coming under increasing scrutiny, it’s becoming nearly impossible to avoid getting caught in a lie. Few things detract more from your credibility and the respect of your colleagues and peers than being called on the carpet to deflect accusations and defend an untruth. Can leaders who lapse learn how to be truthful in words and honorable in deeds? Of course they can.

If you’re fortunate, you’ll meet people over the course of your career who exceed your expectations in every way. When you work or spend time with them, you find yourself wanting to be a better person. You put a lid on both your insecurities and on your sense of entitlement and instead focus on doing and being your best as a way of demonstrating your gratitude to these people you want to honor.

Why do we try to be the best that we can be with such people? Given the choice between instant gratification and the lasting satisfaction of earning the esteem of someone you respect and admire, all but the most small minded would choose the latter.

What would happen to your leadership effectiveness if you became more like the people from whom others actively seek acceptance and more importantly respect? How productive would your executive team, directors and people become if they all felt that having you as a leader represented the rare opportunity to work with someone that people inside and outside the company admire? How much harder would people work if they were inspired and motivated by the privilege of your acting according to a principled True North combined with an adamant faith in their skills?

If you answered anything less than an enthusiastically positive response to those questions, imagine the effect on people if you acted in a manner that was the polar opposite of this. How motivated would your peers and people be if you attacked, blamed, demeaned, and embarrassed them and yourself? Perhaps they’d work hard in the short run because of fear. Your organization might squeeze a winning quarter out of intimidation, but without inspiration you will never build a winning company.

What are the qualities that you as a leader should aspire to in order to earn, deserve, and command respect? Look no further than a mentor (such as my mentor, Warren Bennis) whose belief in you made you want to give your best to your professional and personal life and leave the world better than you found it. Chances are they possessed the following five attributes:

- The JUDGMENT to know the right thing to do.
- The INTEGRITY to do it.
- The CHARACTER to stand up to those who don’t.
- The COURAGE to stop those who won’t.
- The TENACITY to keep doing it.

If you consistently practice and develop these qualities in your professional and personal life, you will accrue an additional benefit beyond getting the best out of your people, peers and colleagues, as well as your family. You will develop wisdom. With that you will be able to distinguish what’s important in life, what’s worth fighting for — even dying for — and what makes a life that’s worth living.

Action Steps:

1. Meet with your team and ask them if they agree with these five qualities as keys to success and if not, ask them how they would change or add to the list.
2. Have them come up with a definition of each of the items on that final list and adjectives that go along with each.
3. Have them come up with specific observable examples of each.
4. Set up a process for recognizing and celebrating people when they demonstrate these qualities in their actions.

If becoming this kind of leader speaks to you, find out more at: Executive Coaching, check out some Testimonials and check out our new offering, the Persuade Without Pushing program I co-developed with Dr. John Ullmen from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

• Steve Jobs innovates
• John Kao teaches innovation
• Arianna Huffington is Paul Revere telling us we’d better start innovating (because the Indians and Chinese are not coming and in fact are leaving to build companies in their countries)
  

Here is the Google definition of Innovation:

• innovation /’ɪnəv’eɪʃən/
  Synonyms:

  • noun: novelty, newness
  • innovations plural
  • An innovation is a new thing or a new method of doing something. N-COUNT
    • The vegetarian burger was an innovation which was rapidly exported to Britain.
    • …the transformation wrought by the technological innovations of the industrial age.
  • Innovation is the introduction of new ideas, methods, or things. N-UNCOUNT
    • We must promote originality and encourage innovation.

When I think of the word INNOVATION I think of something else.  I think of IN + OVATION.  To me it means that idea, method or thing which spontaneous causes the end user to inwardly feel a sense of wonder, awe or just WOW and to internally applaud it (i.e. ovation). It’s longer lasting than excitement or immediate gratification.  The iPod and Avatar have it and the iPad may have it.

It also brings together multiple expansive and divergent experiences into a convergent WOW.  Imax and some animated 3-D seemed to be getting some traction; Avatar hit it out of the park and may be the “tipping point” for 3-D television.  The Kindle gave people a taste of turning away from a book they could hold in their hands to something that could store hundreds of books.  As the newspaper and magazine industry appears to be in a shambles, the iPad might be the vehicle for reading that content complete with mastheads that look very much like the actual newspaper of magazine.

If 3-D televison and teleconferencing via telecommunication vehicles such as skype and GoToMeeting or even Cisco’s Telepresence continue to blossom and if traveling continues to be a hassle, I am guessing that one of the next innovations would be an iPad application/technology that enables you to make a video telephone call in 3D.  That would come as close to recreating the actual experience of being with someone as actually being there.

One of the things common to the most enthusiastically embraced innovations is that they “Create Gotta See It, Have It, Buy It, Do It” followed by a continued “Wanna See It, Have It, Buy It, Do It.”

One of the best ways to discover what WOWS your end user is to “Just Listen” (check out the humblingly enthusiastic reader reviews of my book to get a taste of those reactions).

Like many of you who are wishing to make back what you lost in 2008, I’m kicking myself for not buying Apple Computer stock when it was much lower than its 12/24/09 record high of $209.04 up a massive 145% year to date after plunging 57% in the market meltdown of 2008

And like you, I’m of course also saying to myself now, “Too high to buy.” The next best thing for me is to try to figure out how Apple does what they do. That may not put money in my bank, but at least it’s a satisfying intellectual exercise.

This is a work in progress, but here are some preliminary thoughts, observations and hypotheses. I have long viewed Apple as the visionary company of the last decade with the creation and release of Macbooks, iMacs, iPods, iTunes, iPhones. What is great about being a visionary vs. opportunistic (think Microsoft) company is the following. If your vision is correct and you can develop products that are so superior in design and function to the competition and successfully keep it under wraps until release date, when you do finally announce it, all would be competitors will see you as too far ahead to compete against. That advantage becomes your barrier to entry.

I then realized that Apple may not be so purely visionary as I thought. Apple’s breakthrough roots go back to its grabbing the original optical/mouse interface from Xerox when that company saw it as too far from their core business to be of use (that must be the ultimate silo induced failure in financial history). I think part of Apple’s modus operandi is seeing other companies develop a technology to a certain point, but that are unable to take advantage of its full market potential.

For instance, if the rumored “iTablet” comes out, part of its development will be caused by seeing how paper publishing (from magazines to newspapers to books) is crossing over to digital acceptance. That means that people who previously much preferred the real feel of an actual newspaper or book will increasingly get used to and prefer a “kindle like” or even “iPhone” especially if it has all the technologically neat features that an Apple product will have.

Although the kindle is improving its quality, if Apple does release a tablet, it will blow away any competitors with color, graphics, cross platform inter-connectivity and iTablet applications that will be user friendly and awe inspiring, not to mention that will spawn many companies to develop them.

If any of the above comes to pass there is a take home for companies that would like to be the “Apple of their industry’s eye.” Central to Apple’s products are the capacity to produce products that satisfy (work well and smoothly, think Macbooks that are virus free), delight (think iPod’s that  enable you to tune out the chaos in the world) and excite (think touching the screen of an iPhone for the first time).

By satisfying, delighting and exciting us with its products, Apple has found a way to tap into our neurochemistry and addict us.  Satisfaction (and well being) is mediated through endorphins; delight is mediated through dopamine (ironically, when someone or something is referred to as “dope” little did people using that term know how apt a designation that is); excitement is mediated through adrenaline (the well known “adrenaline rush” that the entire Millenial generation is addicted to).  What Apple intuitively understands is that for every experience of satisfaction (endorphin), delight (dopamine) and excitement (adrenaline) there is a crash when they go away.  It is that crash that increases the addictive need for another “fix.”  That is why spacing out the introduction of new products (similar to the spacing out of American Idol competitions) helps increase the anticipatory hunger and the chances of a successful launch.

And if Apple produces an iTablet, look for it to announce the release with an ad that satisfies, delights and excites akin to the famous Apple Macintosh 1984 commercial. (BTW, if I were designing one, I would have the ad showing people either throwing away or shredding all paper published products — from newspapers to magazines to books — in favor of an all-in-one iTablet.)

All this said, I still wish I had bought Apple stock at its low last year.

To err is human,
to take full responsibility for it,
face and pay all the consequences,
is divine

We and Tiger Woods may never know why he did what he did? It’s unclear if we or Bill Clinton ever figured out why he did what he did or John Edwards or Eliot Spitzer or yadda, yadda, yadda…

But what is clear is the “rubbernecking” that this story is causing as if people are watching some roadside disaster. The attraction may be that the exposure of Tiger Woods immoral behavior, is causing waves of anxiety among the not-yet-caught men who are flirting with similar disasters and the women who love them. It has been a bad few days for denial.

I can imagine millions of men who have been cheating on their wives through prostitutes or mistresses or tip toeing into their dens and home offices to lose themselves in the world of pornography, scurrying around to erase phone numbers and delete computer files and swear to themselves that they will never engage in such behavior again.

I can also imagine these men looking more guilty than usual and raising the suspicions of their wives.

Finally I can imagine volatile confrontations taking place that are finally exposing marital infidelity of one form or another.

If such activities are exposed, can the damage be undone? Once trust is broken by betrayal, can it be regained?

There is a road back, but it takes practicing the 4 R’s to respond to the 4 H’s you triggered in the other person by betraying their trust.

The 4 H’s and the 4 R’s:

1. To ease the HURT you need to demonstrate REMORSE to show that you know you damaged something in them, by looking them directly in the eye and admitting you’re truly sorry, with no excuses (this is the stumbling block for very narcissistic people and something Bill Clinton had trouble with during the Monica situation)

2. To respond to the HATE you need to show RESTITUTION and offer a payback for what you took away from them by giving up something that matters to you or letting them verbally punch themselves out at you for making them feel crazy
while you lied to them

3. To lower their HESITATION TO TRUST you need to REHABILITATE yourself to let them see a new way of dealing with those situations that caused you to stray and that you actually prefer to your old destructive behavior

4. To get them to stop HOLDING ONTO A GRUDGE, you need to REQUEST FORGIVENESS after practicing those 3 R’s for a minimum of 6 months so they can become a part of your personality

If the other person is still unable to forgive you after that, you are no longer unforgivable (if you haven’t gone beyond betrayal into abuse), they are unforgiving.

It’s clear what is in it for you if they forgive you, but what’s in it for them? When you earnestly practice the 4 R’s above, you enable the person you injured to go from fear and loathing to feeling safe, trusting and even liking you again—and that feeling is called, “euphoria.”

*A full explanation of the 4 H’s and 4 R’s and how to use them to rebuild trust is available in The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall in Love Again…and Stay There (Perigee) by Mark Goulston with Philip Goldberg.

When these elements are abundant, a relationship is vital and strong. When any one of them is in short supply, the relationship is troubled.

To make a relationship last…

Identify where it has deteriorated. Have dialogue to air resentments, correct misunderstandings and develop solutions to which both partners commit.

Take steps to keep the six elements out in the open, where they can be nurtured by you and your partner — so you can stay in love.

KEEP THE CHEMISTRY

Chemistry is the passion that sweeps you away when you first fall in love.

Test yourself: How often are you turned on by the way your partner looks dressed and undressed?

Answers: 1/Rarely… 2/Sometimes… 3/Often.

EARN EACH OTHER’S RESPECT

This has more to do with how good a person you are — and how good a person your partner is — than how good each of you makes the other feel. You demonstrate respect by how well you listen.

Test yourself: How often do you listen to your partner and hear him/her all the way through without interrupting?

Answers: 1/Rarely… 2/Sometimes… 3/Often.

ENJOY EACH OTHER

This is about having fun being together. When you’re with your spouse — or think about him — it makes you feel lighter and puts a smile on your face. Unpleasant people — judgmental, easy to disappoint and difficult to please — drain your energy.

Test yourself: How often do you and your partner dine alone together?

Answers: 1/Rarely… 2/Sometimes… 3/Often.

ACCEPT YOUR PARTNER AS IS

It is better to hope for change, rather than to keep acceptance contingent on changes being made. When acceptance is missing, partners feel judged and as if they can’t do anything right.

Test yourself: How often do you feel you can be yourself with your partner?

Answers: 1/Rarely… 2/Sometimes… 3/Often.

BUILD TRUST

Trust makes it safe to confide fears and dreams without concern that what you say will be exploited, betrayed, trivialized or ridiculed. It takes seconds to destroy trust — and years to rebuild it.

Test yourself: How often are you able to tell your partner things you feel embarrassed or ashamed about?

Answers: 1/Rarely… 2/Sometimes… 3/Often.

EMPATHY TO DEFUSE RESENTMENT

Empathy is about understanding and feeling understood by your partner. It’s asking, “What’s it like for my partner right now?” Don’t presume you know.

Test yourself: How frequently do you feel understood by your partner?

Answers: 1/Rarely… 2/Sometimes… 3/Often.

HOW DO YOU RATE?

If you and your partner scored 3′s across the board, you have the basis for a lasting relationship. Congratulations!

If, however, either you or your partner scored less than 3 in any of the six areas, you may want to improve.

Set aside time to talk through when and why any of those areas deteriorated. Make every effort to have a dialogue instead of a debate… to talk with instead of at or over… to listen openly rather than defensively.

Then decide what each of you specifically needs to do now to restore the chemistry, respect, enjoyment, acceptance, trust and empathy so that you can fall in love again — and stay there.

SOURCE: The 6 Secrets of a Lasting Relationship: How to Fall in Love Again…and Stay There (Perigee, $15.95)