The 5 Gears

How to Be Present and Productive When There is Never Enough Time

Jeremie Kubicek, Steve Cockram

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781119111177
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Desarrollo personal
• Subtopic: Éxito personal

Be present, connect more effectively, all while being as productive as possible

5 Gears: How to Be Present and Productive When There Is Never Enough Time teaches you to shift into the right gear at the right time so that you can grow in your relational intelligence and increase your influence. This revolutionary text introduces you to the five different gears, or mindsets, that carry you through various facets of your day. These include:

• First gear—when you fully rest and recharge
• Second gear—when you connect with family or friends without the involvement of work
• Third gear—when you are socializing
• Fourth gear—when you are working and multi-tasking
• Fifth gear—when you are fully focused and 'in the zone, ' working without interruption

Using these gears consistently allows you to bring a new level of relational intelligence to your life that offers a competitive advantage in our task-driven world.

All too often people go through life without truly connecting—and can, as a result, miss out on experiences and relationships that have the power to bring them great joy. By understanding how the five gears presented in this engaging book work, you can improve your ability to connect with the world around you.

• Explore why some people stay disconnected from the people and events around them, and why others always seem to have a deep connection to their friends, family, and surroundings
• Learn how to set triggers and markers that help you shift into the right gears at the right time, which will increase your relational dynamics and make you more productive
• Create positive change in the dynamics of your relationships
• Improve your respect and influence—and learn a sign language that, when used, can change your perspective and your world.

5 Gears: How to Be Present and Productive When There Is Never Enough Time is the perfect resource for anyone who wants to live and lead connected.

Section Two
5 Gears for Practical Connection

3
Getting in Gear

Think about your first car. Some of you can close your eyes and envision when your eyes first gazed upon it. You were entranced, as you longed to be able to drive like an adult. It is amusing to hear how adults describe their first vehicle, especially if it had unique qualities. Even if the car was a junker, there were certain things that stood out to you.

Remembering your first car is one thing; remembering how you first drove that vehicle is a completely different memory. Some of you started with a vehicle with a manual stick shift. Do you remember what those first few drives were like? The grinding gears and jerky ride as you tried hard to manage the clutch and accelerator while attempting to stay on the road. If you don't remember, I am sure those who rode with you do.

Driving is difficult, with all of the inputs and decisions that need to be made. The same goes with leadership. Communicating a vision, managing people, dealing with issues, all as you try to stay focused on your own personal tasks and goals can be quite difficult. Leading well is similar to driving well. Over time you get in a rhythm if you observe and practice, but those first few years can be tense to say the least.

My first car was a 1972 Alfa Romeo GT2000. It was a sleek, candy-apple red, two-door, five-speed beauty. As a 16-year-old living in a small city in central Oklahoma, it felt as James Bond-ish as any car could. The windshield wipers alternated toward one another and the smooth lines along the small car gave it a very distinct, European feel. The crown jewel of my beautiful new, old car, however, was the elegant wood. The steering wheel was made from a distinguished walnut wood, as was the manual gearshift handle.

As a new driver who was getting acclimated to a manual transmission, that poor car had to deal with my grinding gears and timid use of the clutch. I had to practice shifting, learning to listen to the engine to know when to shift, and then practicing a smooth transition from one gear to the next.

As I became a bit more confident in my driving skills, I remember trying to start driving straight out of second gear while avoiding first gear altogether. Starting in first just took too long and I had places to go, people to see, things to do. I thought I could just skip a gear and get to fourth or fifth gear as fast as possible. That was a mistake. It didn't take long before I learned what such impatience did to the engine, not to mention my plummeting gas mileage, and the lurching effect it caused.

Twenty-plus years later I found myself living in the English countryside, staring at a right-sided steering wheel and a left-handed manual stick shift in our first rental car. Learning to drive on what the English call the correct side of the road is one thing. But adding a left-handed gear shift to the equation made driving on the opposite side of the road even more challenging, given how intently I had to focus on shifting as we drove on the tiny lanes of London. I would sum up the experience with the following words: Grinding gears, close calls, lurching motions, and terror—I mean, excitement.

There are parallels with shifting gears in a car and the rhythms and routines of our lives: There is a right order and a right time for each gear. Conversely, there is also a wrong gear and a wrong time. People who figure this out tend to drive smoothly and effectively. People who don't shift well tend to cause damage to all those around them—people and vehicles.

There is a right time and a right place for each gear.

1st gear is meant to lead to 2nd and so forth. Each gear has a purpose, and if you understand the purpose and apply this driving analogy to the way you “drive” your life, aligning the right gear with the right speed and situation of your day will allow you to have a smooth journey. Conversely, if you choose to skip a gear, as in my example, then you may rev to screaming levels and cause the engine of your life all sorts of problems.

The 5 Gears is a metaphor centered on an everyday, manual transmission vehicle or stick shift. Most European cars have a manual gearbox, while most American vehicles have an automatic transmission. In both cases there are gears that start in 1st gear and shift through until you reach 5th gear (unless you drive a very expensive car that adds a 6th gear). Reverse is also a gear, which could make up a 6th or 7th gear depending on the car, but for simplicity we will use 5 Gears as the overall theme of the metaphor.

With our metaphor, each gear represents a different mode of connecting through living, leading, working, and resting. We will define each one and give concrete examples throughout to help make this a practical system for connectivity, work–life balance, and to improve emotional intelligence.

To start, let's look at the gear order as you see it in Figure 3.1. 1st gear leads to 2nd, which leads to 3rd, and so on. The same thinking applies to our metaphor: To lead yourself well and connect appropriately in your relationships, your day needs to begin in 1st gear, after which you shift up into other gears. You can go from 1st gear to 5th in life, but it is not recommended and the consequences can be damaging, just like with your car. You can also go from 3rd gear to reverse, but just because you can, does not mean you should, considering cause and downstream effect. The best drivers understand when to shift and when not to. The same is true with the best leaders. They understand the gears.

• 1st gear represents being fully recharged.
• 2nd gear represents connecting with family, friends, or colleagues.
• 3rd gear is the social gear.
• 4th gear is the task gear that allows us to work hard while also multitasking.
• 5th gear is focus mode that allows us to “get in the zone” without interruption.
• Reverse is the responsive gear. It is used when we need to back up and start again or apologize.

Figure 3.1 5 Gears

Each gear has its own purpose and place. Once you learn to use the gears consistently with those in your life, you will notice the common language that begins to form, enabling objectivity to characterize your conversation instead of the subjective judgment or condescension that becomes pervasive when each person is speaking a different “language.” With the gears, you will also be able to incorporate some shorthand sign language to describe what gear you are in with a hand signal, which makes conversations more efficient and effective among people who share the same language.

Without further ado, here are the 5 Gears in a visual form to give you detail and context (Figure 3.2). Many people hang this tool up in their break rooms at work or on their refrigerator at home.

Figure 3.2 The 5 Gears Tool

Each one of you has a personal gearbox, 5 Gears, plus reverse, at your disposal to use in your daily life. Some of you already intuitively shift up and down into the right gears with ease, similar to having driven a car for many years, where you no longer have to think about the individual mechanics of going from point A to point B. You are not analyzing your shifting; you just do it.

Others of you are less than competent with regard to the way you are driving your life: You have not been aware that you may be breaking social etiquette or missing relational cues at work or at home. If you are experiencing frustration in any of your relationships, this is a clue as to what category you are currently in. Learning these gears is the key to helping you connect with people in the right way and to eliminate socially awkward situations, and even begin to repair damaged relationships. If you understand how to drive your life with these gears, you will unlock depths of connection and influence in your relationships that you never knew existed.

It took me a few years to master the art of driving a five-speed, eventually shifting the stick shift with ease and grace. It has taken me much longer to learn how to shift the actual relational gears in my life and become consistent. And the progress I have made has not come without constant practice and intentionality in matching my gear to the context of the situation.

In our culture most adults suffer from one or two of three connectivity problems:

1. They rarely understand which gear they are operating in at any given moment.
2. They rarely know what gear the other people in their life are operating in.
3. They rarely take the time to practice shifting and operating in each gear.

This combined lack of awareness and practice explains why we have so many people suffering from the realities of workaholism, social awkwardness, rude commentary, and a rash of disconnection within families, spousal relationships, boards, and teams. Imagine how many marriages have crumbled simply because two people have not learned how to shift gears or consistently remain emotionally connected. Think about how many employees are fired because they haven't learned the basics of emotional intelligence and shifting through the 5 Gears.

The life of the disconnected person is frustrating for both the individual as well as those around them.

Healthy and Unhealthy Gears

Each gear in the 5 Gears metaphor has both a healthy and an unhealthy side. Some of us are good at using the gears, while others will tend to abuse them. You might have heard the words of people who have failed to learn how to shift well:

• “I don't understand how they misinterpreted my words. I told them I was….”
• “My wife should know this is a busy season. I have told her how important my work is right now.”
• “They don't seem to get me. It is so frustrating.”
• “I work hard and play hard. I do put in the hours to be able to serve my family. They understand that I have to work l...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Introduction
• Section One: Connectivity
• Section Two: 5 Gears for Practical Connection
• Section Three: Living and Leading Connected
• Transformational Leadership Resources
• About GiANT Worldwide
• Acknowledgments
• Index
• End User License Agreement