WorkPuzzle

The Confidence Formula

One of our most popular blogs was written around the concept of Coaching for Confidence.  Below, are some of the original findings regarding this fascinating subject, along with some additional findings that help improve our understanding of the topic.

It's no secret that managing and coaching those around us can feel futile if those being coached lack confidence in their ability to succeed.  We've all witnessed talented people lose their spark and confidence, begin to wilt, and eventually begin to drop below performance standards.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, an expert on the subject of confidence explains:

"Confidence consists of positive expectations for favorable outcomes.  Confidence influences the willingness to invest - to commit money, time, reputation, emotional energy, or other resources - or to withhold or hedge investment.  This investment, or its absence, shapes the ability to perform.  In that sense, confidence lies at the heart of civilization.  Everything about an economy, a society, an organization, or a team depend on it.  Every step we take, every investment we make, is based on whether we feel we can count on ourselves and others to accomplish what has been promised.  Confidence determines whether our steps – individually or collectivity – are tiny and tentative or big and bold."  (Confidence: Leadership and the Psychology of Turnarounds, 2004)

Recruiting people is just the first stage of an ongoing process.  It's your job as a coach, manager, and/or mentor, to bring out the best in others, which begins with assessing their confidence.  They must believe that they can succeed in order to succeed.

Carol Craig at the Centre for Confidence and Well-Being claims that she and her colleagues have developed a formula for confidence.  It appears to be quite accurate, with a great deal of research to back it up.  It goes like this:

Confidence = Self-efficacy (the belief you can reach your goals) + Optimism.

So what do these terms mean?

Self-efficacy:

"Self-efficacy is the term that psychologists use to describe the belief a person has that they can reach their goals.  Unlike self-esteem which is more of a global judgment on the self and its worth, self-efficacy specifically isolates the way an individual assesses their competence in relation to achievements, goals and life events.  Self-efficacy expert, Albert Bandura from Stanford University argues that 'ordinary realities are strewn with impediments, adversities, setbacks, frustrations and inequities.'  He therefore claims that people need 'a robust sense of efficacy' to keep trying."

Research on self-esteem suggests that parents (through genes and parenting style) have the biggest influence on a young person’s self-esteem.  However, Bandura and others argue that schools (perhaps even real estate coaching and training...) play a huge role in developing young peoples' feelings of self-efficacy.

Optimism:

"In everyday life we usually use the word optimism to mean feeling positive about life.  Often we refer to someone who is optimistic as seeing ‘the glass as half-full, rather than half-empty.'

In psychology, there are two main ways to define optimism.  Scheier and Carver, the authors of the popular optimism measure – The Life Orientation Test - for example, define optimism as 'the global generalized tendency to believe that one will generally experience good versus bad outcomes in life.'  In everyday language this means 'looking on the bright side of life.'  In such a definition, pessimism is the tendency to believe 'if something can go wrong for me, it will.'  The other main way to define optimism is to use the concept of 'explanatory style.'  This is the approach taken by Professor Martin Seligman, author of Learned Optimism and co-author of The Optimistic Child.  He argues that each of us has our own ‘explanatory style,’ a way of thinking about the causes of things that happen in our lives.  Optimists are those who see adversities as temporary and restricted to one domain of life while pessimists often see problems as permanent and pervasive."  (Carol Craig, Centre for Confidence and Well-being, 2006).

So, what can you do if those you coach lack confidence?  Here are some ideas:

1. Ask them: "Do you believe that you will succeed?"  If they don't, or if they say yes in a tentative manner:

2. Then ask them what they believe the outcome will be if they don't really believe they can achieve their goals?  (Even though my graduate courses were over 23 years ago, I can tell you that those who believed they'd finish and do well, did!  Those who didn't have that confidence, failed!)

3. Once you have them talking about their uncertainty and its impact on their performance:  Ask them to remember a time when they did succeed - big time!  Urge them to remember their attitude going into the situation.  What was their level of confidence?  Did they expect success?  Why?

4. And lastly, remind them that their best confidence will develop as they focus on developing their strengths, and contributing to clients, co-workers and society at large, rather than taking on important tasks and projects only to bolster their ego.  Only under these conditions can one sustain great performance.  Because when things don't go well, it's not about your ego, it's about your contribution!

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Great Managers And An Evening With Sha Na Na

I had the pleasure of spending last Thursday evening with Nicki Marcellino, Branch Manager for a Prudential California Realty office in La Jolla.  Nicki and I had originally met at a Palm Springs conference for Prudential California’s top agents, where I had been invited to speak.  It didn’t take long for me to figure out that there was something special about Nicki.  She had that calm authority that one feels instantly comfortable around.  Soon after meeting her, I was told by someone that she was the top manager in the nation.

At the end of the Palm Springs weekend, I casually extended an offer for her to give me a call whenever she came to the Seattle area.  Not much time went by, when, low and behold, I received an email from Nicki, accepting my invitation and extending her own—Tickets for my wife and I to attend, with her, a Seattle Symphony concert featuring her husband’s well-known band, Sha Na Na.  (If you recall, they made their debut 40 years ago at Woodstock, and have been playing ever since.) 

My wife and I had quite a memorable evening sitting next to Nicki during the very entertaining concert.  After the concert, we enjoyed dessert and conversation with Nicki and her husband, Jocko.

Now, the point of this story is to share what I feel makes Nicki Marcellino and other great managers so good at what they do.  I’ve had the pleasure of meeting several managers like her within the ranks of the organizations we serve.  If you spend time with these innovative managers, you’ll begin to see a pattern of similar characteristics.  Here is a summary of what I truly believe about exceptional managers.

Every great manager possesses:

1. A consistently strong work ethic.  These individuals aren’t just biding their time.  They love what they do, and set out to learn as much as they can so that they are constantly improving themselves as managers.  (By the way, by the week's end, Nicki is so emotionally spent that she has made a weekly tradition of attending Friday afternoon matinees to wind down...a well deserved reward!)

2. A calm authority.  When you're around good managers, you may have noticed that they never really seem to panic.  They believe things will go well, and those managed by them are drawn to this sense of calm and certainty, combined with expertise.

3. Confidence without a shred of arrogance.  When I introduced Nicki to my wife as “One of the top managers...” she interrupted and said without a shred of arrogance, “Number One Manager.”  This seems to be a consistent characteristic of some of the best managers I’ve had the pleasure of meeting.  Additionally, these folks don’t presume to know everything, and quickly concede that they can learn tons from their top producers.

4. An expectation of greatness in others.  And to back this up, they hold people accountable.  Great managers have no qualms about saying, “This is what your capable of doing, and if you don’t reach these goals, then you or I are doing something wrong.”  There is a competitiveness that comes through and naturally inspires others.

If you feel there are other essential characteristics that great managers share, please let me know.  In the meantime, let me just say thank you to Nicki for a more than pleasant evening at the symphony!

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Reframing Recruiting

Psychologists love to "reframe" any issue that causes conflict.  We can be borderline obsessed with reframing, and there is a reason for this:  Reframing has a way of dismantling defenses, exposing old myths, eliminating fears, and igniting productivity.

 What do I mean by reframing?  Reframing means helping others to look at a conflicting topic with a new set of eyes.  Put another way, it means viewing an old problem through a different lens.  Reframing requires stepping back and trying to determine why there is such resistance around a reoccurring topic of frustration, and discussing it in a new way.  Often times, it only requires small changes in language to accomplish large leaps in a-ha moments of clarity for everyone involved.  It can mean the difference between stalemate and responses like "Oh, that's what you meant?"

For example, a moment of clarity about reframing the task of recruiting came to someone on our team (Lee Gray) while she was doing laundry this past week.  Many of our clients know Lee, as she trains hundreds of managers across the country on the use of a recruiting tool called Talent Pipeline.  In her work with managers, Lee is able to experience firsthand the range of differences between managers who are quite comfortable with the various aspects of recruiting, and those who are intimidated so much by the concept that they have become paralyzed by fear, and thus struggle to move forward.

We all know that organizations need to recruit, and the importance of this goal is constantly emphasized by organizations to their managers..and rightfully so.  However, it has become quite clear to Lee that many managers begin to shut down emotionally as soon as the word "recruiting" is uttered.  Building a pipeline of "recruits" seems to be a task that is likened to having a root canal.

Instead of writing off this range of managers who feel this fear, Lee began to wonder (out loud in her laundry room I might add)... Why do some people with such proven people skills hesitate to engage in recruiting, while others don't? 

The culprit to the breakdown was the word "recruiting."  When she changed the language to "relationship building," managers began to relax.  This makes sense, given the fact that most managers are natural relationship builders.  That's why they do what they do! 

So, Lee's reframing is quite simple (as most reframing is):  "Focus on relationship building," and maintain a pipeline of those "relationships" you want to build.  Next, focus on the tasks that will help you build them.  Then track those tasks as a way to hold yourself accountable. Eventually, as a byproduct of your natural ability to build relationships, successful recruiting will follow.

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

The Best Places To Launch A Career: Can You Compete? - Part 2

Each of us has either experienced firsthand, or know someone who has experienced a mid-life crisis when it comes to career choice.  We understand the crisis that can result when a person feels that perhaps they've been "stuck" in the wrong job for the last 15 years.  We can even sympathize with the strong urge for a career change that some of us experience after dedicating so many years to a particular field of work.  

In fact, the majority of today's real estate agents have evolved from these types of crises.  Is it possible that you identify with these folks so much, that you've made them the primary, or even exclusive focus of your recruiting efforts?
 
In light of the information revealed by Business Week's recent survey (read Monday's blog for more on this), it seems that we are missing out on an enormous new resource.  Young college graduates are facing a crisis that most people don't have to consider until reaching their mid 40's.  They are leaving college with no prospect of being able to work in their area of specialty.

The good news for you is, they are hungry for a new direction.  Another Business Week article includes several examples of intelligent, motivated, new grads who have had to settle for very low-level jobs. Take for instance, Sasha Muradalih, a University of Miami graduate with a Masters in International Public Relations.  Unable to find a job, she is currently settling for clerical work.  Then there's Stephanie Haller, a graduate of Humboldt State University (BA in Journalism), who is currently Managing a Hollywood Video store.  The list goes on...

The point is this: It might be time to take advantage of this young, educated, and hungry generation, while they're ready and available.  They want to launch new and exciting careers, and many of them will make great agents.  One idea is to create a Manager development track that's more systematic, providing young people from a business/management education, with a vision of where they could be a few years from now. 

What have you got to lose?  Some managers have said it takes too much time to train people who are so young and may not work out.  This could arguably be a complaint about candidates of any age...anyone who doesn't immediately appear self-sufficient.  There is an answer to this:  Numbers!  Increase the number you source, which will increase the number of candidates you interview, which will ultimately increase the number of solid, young people you'll meet... who you know can knock it out of the park!

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Editor's Note:  This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn.  Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle.  Comments or questions are welcome.  If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email.  If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Flow and Accountability

We all take for granted that when we step out into this round, rotating world we live on, that we won't go flying off.  We're held on by gravity.  The same gravity that can kill you if you jump off anything of any height.

This is a law..."The Law of Gravity."  As I have been preaching these last few months, there are laws that govern your work life, and laws that manage your happiness too...and they are connected.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (great name for a researching Psychologist) set out 40 years ago to determine what really gives people true and repeatable enjoyment.  What he found may surprise you.  It's actually work!  Not any kind of work, but work where you lose yourself in the activity.  I'm not just talking about enjoyable tasks, rather tasks that require accountability.

"What he found is that people of all ages, nationalities and interests in life report their involvement in activities in a similar way.  In a nutshell ‘flow’ happens when we become so absorbed in an activity that we lose ourselves and our sense of time is altered.  When we are engrossed we often have so little sense of ourselves that we do not feel happy – in fact we feel nothing.  (Or indeed we may even experience physical discomfort as may be case for a mountaineer or athelete.)  But afterwards we have such a strong sense of gratification that we construe the activity as enjoyable and satisfying and so such experiences contribute substantially to our feelings of happiness and well-being.

Activities which can induce flow are varied and numerous.  It could be reading a book, playing a sport or having an engrossing conversation with a friend.  Commonly it is something that we find challenging.  This is why many people experience flow easily in competitive sports where challenge and feedback are intrinsic to the activity.  If the talents of the players are mismatched – one is a beginner chess player, for example, and the other is a Grand Master then neither is likely to experience flow.  For one opponent there is no challenge and for the other it is too daunting and so not easy to lose oneself in the activity."

Want to duplicate this in your company?

Here are the eight ingredients of flow:

"1. The experience occurs usually when we are involved in tasks that we have a good chance of completing.
2. We are able to concentrate fully on the activity.
3. The task has clear goals.
4. The task is such that it gives us immediate feedback on how well we are doing.
5. Our involvement is ‘deep but effortless’ and this ‘removes from awareness the worries and frustrations of everyday life’.
6. There is a sense of exercising control over our actions.
7. Concern for the self disappears’ but paradoxically our ‘sense of self emerges stronger after the flow experience is over.’
8. We lose our normal sense of time – we can feel either that it has speeded up (and passed quickly) or slowed down."    (Centre for Confidence and Well-Being, 2006)

In other words, if you don't build systems and ways to measure and compare those systems, you can't experience flow.  This serves as yet another law...one that reinforces the justification and value of good management and better accountability. 

The Talent Sale - Part 2

Yesterday, I described the unusual situation that we are currently in, where top talent is available, marked down, and easy to dislodge.  If you are responsible for hiring, you owe it to yourself, and the company you work for, to spend some time imagining how this works. (Definitely begin be reviewing yesterday's blog.)

Let's say you're single, and you are looking to date someone.  Where's the best environment for this?  Is it among a group of happily married couples, or among a group of singles?  The answer is, of course, obvious.  This may sound like a ridiculous analogy, but it applies to recruiting more than you may think!

To take the analogy further... As far as talented people and their loyalty to their employers goes, we are now in a situation where there have been millions of "divorces" and many considering "divorce."  If you ever want "to date," NOW is the time.  Now is the time when the largest number of people are willing to "play the field."  Don't wait until everyone has already "dated" other industries and "found their match," because the majority of the workforce will likely stick with their new match through several economic cycles before they switch industries again.  This is the time to attract, date, and marry this extremely wide pool of very good prospects.

Continuing the analogy... Most hiring managers restrict their "dating" to only those who actively "flirt" with them.  And we all know, this limits your dating prospects to the most desperate individuals.  And if you limit yourself to those who actively flirt, you'll probably wind up with someone who will flirt with other companies once they're with you!

To win over the best date and best prospects, you must set a goal and not give up.  The most successful daters know that finding a great partner takes tenacity, patience, and a willingness to be rejected.  They know that finding the right person is a numbers game, and by increasing the number of rejections, they'll increase their chances of winning the heart of someone great.

The numbers have never been so much in your favor...  

Top Talent - On Sale NOW!

I'm sure you've all heard the saying "Buy Low/Sell High" when it comes to the stock market.  Isn't it easy to pull the trigger on a hot stock when it's up and everyone is buying it?  And how hard it is to force yourself to buy when a particular stock is low, and nobody wants anything to do with it?  Sadly, this is how most people operate, despite their knowledge that it is a losing strategy.

This same tendency applies to scouting talent:  Hiring Managers are more than willing to recruit and buy top talent at high prices when things are on a roll, but nobody is interested in this venture when the economy is down.  As you might know, we (Tidemark) have become convinced that looking for talent within other industries is always the best way to broaden your net for catching the next wave of talent.  The companies we work for are witnessing this first hand.

There has never been a more opportune time to take advantage of this strategy.  In fact, Dr. John Sullivan recently wrote an article on this very phenomenon titled, Countercyclical Hiring: The Greatest Recruiting Opportunity in the Last 25 Years.  Sullivan believes that timing plays a huge role in a company's potential for recruiting exceptional new talent.  He explains in detail why now is the time to cast that net:

"The Perfect Time for Recruiting

•Competitors are out of the market — almost no one is in the talent market right now.  Most firms have instituted a hiring and/or a budget freeze, which means the competition for talent is ridiculously low.

•High-quality talent is available — in some downturns, only low-quality talent is laid off by corporations.  However, during the current downturn, because of a large number of recent mergers, facility closings, and the complete elimination of some major firms, the amount of extremely high-quality unemployed or underemployed talent available around the world is at an all-time high.  60% of current fully employed top talent are open to new opportunities.

•Costs are low — the lack of competition and the down economy have forced the price of available talent in almost all positions back down to reasonable levels.  New referral approaches and internet and social networking recruiting tools have also reduced the cost of recruiting talent.

•Talent is amenable — the lack of available job opportunities has 'shifted the power' away from talent and toward corporations to the point where top talent will consider job opportunities and options today that they would have rejected as little as two years ago.

•The coming retirement wave — the dramatic reduction in stock prices and 401(k) values has temporarily postponed the upcoming wave of retirements.  Despite this delay, these retirements will come eventually and if the economy turns around suddenly, firms may very soon be faced with a tidal wave of retirements.  Because large-scale retirements may begin in as little as a year or two, now’s the perfect time to 'stockpile' and develop possible replacements for your most experienced managers and technical talent.

•The coming retention problem — if your organization is among the many that have undergone layoffs, frozen hiring, reduced budgets, and maybe even cut salaries through the use of furloughs, the odds are that your current employees are overworked and stressed.  This less-than-perfect treatment coupled with the fact that many of the 'new generation' of employees have little to no loyalty to a single firm will result in a dramatic increase in turnover as soon as more external opportunities begin appearing.  Obviously, you should begin retention efforts immediately but it may not be possible to remove the 'bad taste' that your current employees experienced.  Expand your recruiting efforts to find replacements and realize that new hires are likely to be more loyal than most employees because they are now seeking security and they would certainly remember the fact that you 'saved them' during a period when no one else would even look at their resume."

Those who wait for the economy to improve will, once again, wind up competing with everyone else for the best candidates.  At that point, as I have said before, most people will have already decided where they want to work and will be deeply entrenched, not even willing to consider other options.  At least the best of them will be...  

Positive Emotions, and Getting Out Alive!

Okay, the title is a little dramatic... I guess I need to stay out of the wilderness for a few weeks.  As I mentioned yesterday, last week my wife and I endured the wet climate in Banff.  Then, over the weekend, I managed to get lost on a hike with my 21 year-old daughter, Katelyn.

Perhaps I've seen too many episodes of Survivorman, but I actually began to ponder if I had wandered into a disastrous situation.  We were hiking a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail, which starts in Mexico and ends at the Canadian border.  On a side note:  We actually ran into a man and his horse who had started on the trek in Mexico, and were two weeks away from the Canadian border.

The mistake I made was going off-trail to find an alpine lake.  We ended up on a trail that dead-ended.  From there, we must have traveled in circles. One's natural tendency is to panic.

We were really never in any trouble, but still, I remembered what research psychologist, Barbara Fredrickson, revealed about staying positive:

"Frederickson has found that while negative emotions narrow people’s perspective and keep them focused on the specific problem in hand (e.g. flight or fight), positive emotions ‘broaden’ people’s likely thoughts and actions as well as their behavior.  In other words, when we are experiencing positive emotions we have more ‘behavioral flexibility’ and this allows us to build ‘intellectual and psychological resources.’  So if we are feeling positive we are more likely to be curious, to learn, to explore and be creative than if we are negative."  (Center for Confidence and Well-Being, 2006)

If we had become panicked, we probably still could have found our way out, but it was more fun, and certainly burned less energy, to stay positive.  We eventually, (two miles or so further) got turned around, found the correct trail, and headed out.
 
Let this story serve as a reminder to keep your team broadening their internal resources of confidence and decisions, by staying positive and developing an atmosphere free from panic and pessimism.  The impact on the brain and it's capacity for creativity is well documented.

As for me... I'll stay in the neighborhood for the next few weeks...

A Lesson In Patience...

I just returned from a five day vacation, visiting both Banff and Calgary, Canada with my wife.  Our trip just happened to coincide with the wettest and coldest few days that this region has had since early May.

If you’ve ever seen pictures of Banff, you’ve caught a glimpse of some of the most spectacular scenery in North America.  We knew it was there, somewhere...but saw none of it during our first two days.  We humorously kept repeating, “I bet this sure is gorgeous”… or… “Wow, can you imagine how beautiful this is?”

Not all was lost those first two days.  I became an expert in converting Celsius to Farenheit, a skill most baristas and mountain guides have down pat (Double the Celsius and add 25...so 12 degrees Celsius is 12x2 = 24, plus 25 = 49 degrees Farenheit).  Yes, our summer vacation, where thongs (foot thongs not the other) were packed and sunscreen in hand, quickly changed to, “What can we see inside?”

On the morning of day three we were actually considering getting in our rental car and driving four hours to what appeared to be sun on the weather channel.  We casually mentioned this to a clerk at the local grocery store who urged us not to lose hope.  She said, “They never know what’s going to happen in the mountains.  Just stick it out, you may be surprised!”

So, feeling bold, we scheduled a climb into the Alpine Lakes area of “Sunshine (that’s right Sunshine) Ski Resort,” ready for any kind of weather the mountains threw at us.

Eventually, the weather mercifully cleared, and the temperature climbed to 23 degrees Celsius (you do the math).  When it did clear, we were standing at the continental divide, near Alpine Lakes, with miles of spectacular views.

So, what did I learn?  I’m constantly learning to be patient... For me this was just another lesson in the importance of the payoff of patience.  Had we driven that day to find “better weather,” we would not only have wasted valuable time chasing an unclear goal, but would also have missed out on one of highlights of the journey.

In managing people, you must have convictions about persistence, tenacity, and patience.  Without valuing these traits, you won’t be able to bring out the best in the talent that’s been entrusted to you.  As a company, do you spend too much time chasing things that don’t pay off, or do you stick to executing a plan? 

The clouds will clear eventually...

Recruiting Is Like Dating

A year and a half ago, I wrote a newsletter article on this subject and received some very positive responses from managers who had tried the approach.  One manager claimed that it was what finally hooked an agent who she had been trying to recruit for years.  Instead of "trying to recruit" like "trying to pick someone up," she simply took the agent out for a glass of wine and listened-- That was it!  The agent called the next day to join her company.

So, I think it would be beneficial to revisit the content of that original letter.  By the way, no matter what business you are in, if you influence people in any way, you can benefit from the following information:

The basics:

Building a pipeline of agent candidates, or recruits of any type, is similar to building a sphere of influence.  You cannot rely on luck or one-time conversations.  You must build rapport with consistent follow-up and lots of attention.

What people need:

Just like people need air to breathe and food to eat, they need acknowledgement and attunement to become attached to a company.  Attunement means “to adjust or accustom your response to become receptive or responsive to someone else.”

For those of you who have ever dated... How many of you like to hear your date drone on and on about themselves without wanting to know anything about you?  We all know that this is a very bad sign.  It really means that the person desires a relationship for the purpose of meeting their own needs, and cares very little about meeting yours. 

Being attuned means that you are interested and curious about the given person.  Being attuned helps build attachment, and attachment leads to hiring and thus, commitment to your organization.

What happens when you treat a person like an object? 

Treating people like an object is never a good idea. People have a sixth sense about this.  If you are interviewing and coaching a person who is fairly desperate for a job, he/she might put up with it for awhile.  But, sooner or later, frustration will set in and he/she will want to leave.  You see, they know that you have no interest in them beyond what they are generating for you and your organization.  BUSTED! – They’ll take the first opportunity to leave.

Solution:

First, examine yourself:  Do you treat those who work for you as objects?  Or, do they know that you are genuinely interested in their growth for their sake, as well as the company's?  If you’re unsure, ask a few people you trust who will give you an honest answer. If you do have this tendency, there is a very simple rule of thumb to apply in every interaction:  Following the tried and true "Golden Rule," ask yourself, “How would I like to be treated if I were in their shoes?” 

Additionally, remember that impatience is the fruit of pride.  Most of us would like others to be patient; We’d like them to be interested in our strengths and how we use them daily; we’d like them to be curious about us as people who have lives outside of the office.

If you want to build an environment of attachment and performance, you need to seriously consider how to shape your own strengths around the above solution.  The challenge is keeping it up after the dating, and during the marriage.