Ideals in Motion

On The Mindless Menace of Violence

Today is the 4oth anniversary of Bobby Kennedy's assassination. These words from one of his finest speeches couldn't be more timely than they are in today's climate.

On the Mindless Menace of Violence

Robert F. Kennedy

City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio
April 5, 1968

"This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr’s cause has ever been stilled by an assassin’s bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.

Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

“Among free men,” said Abraham Lincoln, “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs.”

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man’s spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children’s future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again."

The 4 Levels of Life...

I was doing some research today and came across something I used a number of years ago with a client to help them appreciate some of the distinctions we were working towards. A very abbreviated summary holds that, as a basic framework, we can approach life/work/reality from a number of defined orientations. This notion is drawn from the Buddhist's 4 levels of life:

1. Judgment - seeing things and reacting to my world as if there is a right/wrong, good/bad in play.
2. Evaluation - orienting my world and life view so that I look for value. Simply, in what ways can what I'm viewing be utilized (how is it of value) and is what I'm about to do additive or generative (not good or bad but useful to myself and others).
3. Distinction - seeing and noticing life's events and content without judgment or evaluation.
4. Non-distinction - approaching all with a sense of unity and oneness - I and "it" are not separate.

It's our position that we are most effective at our business and work when we approach both from the dual orientations of evaluation and distinction. We also hold that this dual approach is one key to true sustainability (developing the capacity to continuously start over).

Leaders Define "Space"

I recently had a conversation with a very good friend who related a story of a chance meeting he had shortly after the Vietnam War with someone during a long airplane trip back from Asia. The individual that he sat next to was in the military and was involved with biological research. My friend eventually asked a question pertaining to how the effectiveness of biological weapons was determined. The answer surprised him. It wasn’t the mortality rate that his seatmate cited. It was the receptivity of the environment to the particular pathogen that would be introduced. The environment’s ability to support and grow the pathogen was the key to determining the pathogen’s effectiveness.

Results in an organization emerge in direct correlation to the aspects of the environment that most nurture them. Similar to my friend’s airplane conversation, think in terms of disease resulting from bacteria or virus growth in an organism. If the “environment” within the organism (the health of and relationships amongst the various organs, systems, and bodily functions) is not conducive to a noxious bacteria or virus taking root and growing the organism will remain free of the disease – which may be thought of as the “result” called good health (or profitability for a company). Similarly, disease can be thought of as simply a result that is directly correlated to the receptivity of the organism’s “environment” to support the growth of a particularly noxious bacteria or virus (think of a disengaged workforce where fear is a chief motivational tool and you’ll likely find poor product or service quality). In nature bacteria and viruses of all kinds are always present – and they don’t always take root and grow. The receptivity (or not) of the environment is the key.

Looked at this way, leadership is an outward facing activity. Outward in the sense that an effective leader is continuously attending to their environment – the “space” that they and their organization occupies that makes certain results likely.

As a leader, I need to attend to defining the space in which I move and the environments on which I most want to have influence. I do this not by managing tasks but by focusing on the type and quality of the interconnected relationship that are required to produce the results I desire. Leadership is about defining space; management is about the execution of tasks.

This gives rise to two unorthodox claims: To effectively look outward an effective leader cannot be preoccupied with task accomplishment. For that matter, it is also unwise for leadership (as an activity) to be unduly focused on any particular result. Results are simply a metric that indicates what the environment is designed to produce. Therefore, if I as a leader am not getting the results I want the place to look is to the type and quality of the myriad interconnected relationship within our organizational environmental “space”.

Stopping the Rattle!

I was running this morning on a friend's treadmill. This particular treadmill is well used and I know that many miles have bee run and walked on it over the years. The foam covering the hand rails is torn in places and some of the paint is chipped and faded. About a quarter of the way into my workout the machine developed a very annoying rattle. I stepped off and looked around the machine with the intent of fixing the rattle. Fortunately, I didn't see anything and I couldn't duplicate the rattle unless I was running on the treadmill. Fixing the rattle by fixing the machine didn't look to be an option...and, the rattle was becoming increasingly annoying.

Fortunately...
I mentioned above that I "fortunately" didn't find any cause for the rattle. It was fortunate because, absent a quick fix, a thought occurred to me. If I couldn't fix the machine was there anything I could do to fix how I was using the machine? With this in mind, I started paying attention to my gait. I noticed that I was landing heavier on my left foot than on my right. An old knee injury had been acting up and I had unconsciously compensated. I focused on shifting my gait so that I was landing more on the ball of my foot. The rattle disappeared!

The place to begin "fixing" something is with me...
Where in our organizations do we notice "rattles" that are increasingly irritating to us? If you are like most others, you'll try to "fix" the rattle by looking at the organization and/or at others as the cause of the "rattle". It is highly likely that most organizational "rattles"are caused by leaders and managers landing awkwardly on their organizations. If we want to sustain success we need to learn to first look to ourselves as the cause of the rattles that are causing distress and poor performance in our organizations.

Workplace Coaching

Coaching is all the rage in many organizations around the world today. The prevailing thought is that by charging mangers with the responsibility to coach their people the organization will have both more effective workers and mangers that have developed a critical leadership skill. Unfortunately, the manager as a coach is an oxymoron.

Implications for Management
Managers (and for that matter leaders) can’t be effective coaches in the truest sense of the word “coach”. Excellent coaching requires an understanding and appreciation of the differences inherent in the two activities (management and coaching) that make them mutually incompatible. Coaching in its truest form is a process in which the coach and the client enter into a relationship that has the following attributes:

• Parity of roles – neither coach or client is superior or inferior in the relationship
• The client’s goals, objective and outcomes are paramount
• The process is client led not coach directed.

These attributes make it exceedingly difficult for a manager to be a true coach. When entering what is usually thought of as a coaching relationship most managers begin with an end point in mind – the improvement of an employee’s performance. The employee may or may not know that there is even a problem; or the manager may have misdiagnosed the problem – it could be a workload issue the manager isn’t addressing effectively. The net effect of the manager assuming a problem and beginning to coach to resolve the assumed problem is that the employee will often not be receptive to the process – after all, it’s not their goal it’s their managers! They may feel as if they are being told that something (them or something about them) is broken and needs to be fixed. They will often acquiesce to the process because their manager is their boss which makes it exceedingly unlikely that they will step up and lead the process. Essentially, there is a built in relational imbalance that negates one of the primary attributes of excellent coaching – parity of roles.

Implications for Employees
For the employees being “coached” by their manager the implications of this move to developing a manager/coach can (and often is) more problematic than it is beneficial. It is critical that the coached employee be aware of the fact that their manager very definitely has their own agenda. That agenda may be positively intended to improve the employee’s work experience but make no mistake – it is also intended to solve a problem that the manager/coach believes exists. The coaching, if successful, will benefit the manger as much or more as it does the coached employee.

While something that is potentially mutually beneficial may sound like a good idea mutual benefit is part of the coaching contract. The manager needs to own the fact that very often it is his/her benefit – more than the employee’s – that is being targeted by the coaching activity. To enter the processes without acknowledging this will very likely result in the coached employee legitimately deducing that there is some hidden agenda driving the offer of coaching. It will feel like being told “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you.” The questions of “who is being helped?” and “is the offer coming from someone qualified to actually do the coaching?” are germane and must be honestly explored.

Potential for Benefit
Assuming the manger is competent in the coaching domain and that both parties are clear about who is benefiting and in what ways there can be considerable upside potential for the employee being coached. They will benefit from a focused attention on their development; they will have an opportunity to exhibit improvement in ways that matter to their organization; they will learn new skills and competencies; they may experience a reduction in their stress levels through improved competence; they may ultimately get more of what they want in their work experience – both with their manager and with their actual employment. For this to occur however, the firm, the employee and the manager/coach need to be very clear that the dual role of manager/coach has built in limitations and dangers that need to be proactively voiced and attended to.

The Conversation is the Relationship...

I just finished working with a client's retail team. A major part of our work together focused on defining their vision for the future and on their current sense of identity - literally, the questions "who are we" and "where do we belong". It goes without saying that the level of emotional engagement exhibited by their people relative to both of these areas will be crucial to their utlimate success. Of course, the question is how to achieve high levels of emotional engagement.

One way is to create the space for an intentional conversation. A focused conversation that places people in relationship with both as well as with each other. It's our position that the conversation about the company's vision and about the team's identity needs to be structured so that it becomes the relationship rather than being about the relationship.

By making time for conversational exploration it becomes possible for the individual's voice to be heard; for their assumptions to be aired and vetted; for the ownership of the vision to begin to transfer, and for a common identity to be forged. In being allowed to have a voice we create the probability of emotional engagement. Simply put, it's impossible for me to be passionate about another's vision...I can only be passionate about mine. It's with my vision that I have a relationship. It's with my vision that I have ongoing conversations.

My dad is dying...

and, many friends have told the that the good news in knowing this is that we have ample opportunity to say goodbye.

I've thought a lot about that and, rather than making sure that the "goodbye" is handled well I'm actually being more mindful about insuring that our remaining "hello's" are paid attention to.

Hello. It's a simple word. It's an opening to a way of getting to know someone - even someone I've known literally all of my life. Hello is about connecting. Since finding out about dad's illness connecting has become very important.

Hello, tell me more about yourself; tell me more about how you've created this life for yourself; tell me about what's important to you. He's told me stories that I've never heard (and he's quite a story teller and has led a fascinating life). He's told me stories that have introduced him to me in a different way. Today, I appreciate him more; I appreciate his life more. Today, I more fully understand his decisions and appreciate more fully his fears.

Today isn't for goodbye's. Goodbye is about closure. That will come. Today, I want connection. Hello, let's talk well,  let's connect well - until it's time to say goodbye.

It's the connections...

Our lives are made up of connections. Connections with people, jobs and organizations as well as connections with all kinds of material things – our cars, houses, boats, clothes and other possessions. The most important of these connections is our connection with our self. It is not a stretch at all to say that the quality of our life is determined by the quality of our connections. We define ourselves through our connections.

It used to be that deep, sustained, rich connections developed because we were far more stationary. Not much changed; the pace of life was slower. Today, that’s not likely. In my adult life I’ve lived in four countries and in 10 cities in the U.S. on both coasts. Yesterday I was in phone and email conversations with friends and colleagues in Japan, Finland, China, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Portland and here at home in Seattle. It can be hard work maintaining these connections. To do less jeopardizes the quality of my life.

Am I connected to my ideals? Are they connected to me? How do we create and maintain connections in today’s fast paced and rapidly changing world? The book “Women Connected: A Session-by-Session Coaching Guide for Women’s Groups” is an answer to these questions. It is written in a way that acknowledges that the quality of life is a function of the quality of one’s connections. It is written in a way that provides tools and resources designed to forge and enhance connections – with both my external world and my internal world. Pick it up today by going to www.womenconnected.com.

Superman naked...

I was working the other day with a group of people and we were exploring the nature of success. Specifically, we were considering the somatic implications of whether we as individuals and organizations have a "body" that can accept success when it appears. Success in any field comes with a significant amount of visibility - is our "body" comfortable being seen. Success requires an energy investment in terms of both generation and reception - is the "body" large enough for this. The "body" needs to be a container that can support success.

In the course of our exploring success it was mentioned that Superman was the only super hero that does not need to put on a costume to articulate his power. Indeed, he is the only super hero that purposely puts on a costume to hide his power. Taking this notion and applying it to many of our lives the "costume" is a metaphor for our personalities and the many habits we engage in daily that form our way of being in our lives. These become like a suit of clothes that hides our true power.

The challenge with having ideals to live into is that to do so is often thought of as something only the heroic can do. We often struggle with finding the right "suit" to put on that will empower us. The questions we need to be asking ourselves are not how we change our personalities or our habits. Rather, it is more useful to ask what purpose does this suit I’m currently wearing serve? What suit can I take off knowing that I can always put it back on again. What does taking this particular suit off make possible?

Too Many Balls to Juggle?

There is a lot going on in my life…where do I hold it all? How do I manage to keep what’s important to me alive and in focus when there are other things that are equally important and equally urgent? They all need attending to…they all require my active involvement.

In my body there is a lot going on…energy, tension, emotions. All of it attached to what else is going on. How do I sort through this so that I have access to all of my body, and all of my emotions, and all of my intellect when I need it.

Compartmentalizing. That’s one strategy – and it’s effective to a point. The challenge is to make the walls of the compartments porous. If they become rigid and impenetrable I will lose something important. I need the resources behind those walls for other things as well. I need all of the "me's" that are behind those walls.

I guess the question is less about having too many balls to juggle and more about making sure I know how to keep the walls porous. Keeping the walls porous – this will allow me to keep my life alive while juggling.

Moving with...

Over the years I’ve gotten very good at doing what I do. So good that I know that the external observer – my client – would not physically notice any difference in my approach to delivering content whether I was "in my head" or truly connected to what I was trying to get across. I think this is a common dilemma for many. What compelled me to enter my profession was a connection to an ideal that I was passionate about. I wanted to make a difference. Making “mistakes” in delivering on that ideal didn’t deter me – I was once fired three times and never knew about it. I just kept going until whatever mistakes I had made were no longer a concern and the value I was creating became the focus.

Today, I can deliver just about anything associated with that ideal and do it masterfully. I receive rave reviews and produce extraordinary results. And, I sometimes notice that the passion isn’t there the way it was in the beginning. What’s the consequence of this? The client rarely knows and almost certainly would be hard pressed to verify that I wasn't passionate. I get paid and my family is taken care of.

The consequence is loss of true impact. In the martial arts of the East the true power of the practitioner is in the “Ki”. It's the energy, the force, that connects the practitioner's movement to the ideal of their art and makes it - makes them - a power to be reckoned with. My life, indeed all life,  is about movement and connection. Loose the connection to that which energizes the movement and we loose passion for living.

The consequence is death…not immediate and not readily noticed. The consequence is that I end up going through the motions of living. The consequence is that, one day, I look up and wonder “is that all there is?” and I notice my life is almost gone.

Truly, ideals in motion...

Today, dozens of Amish neighbors turned out to mourn the quiet milkman who killed five of their young girls and wounded five more in a brief, unfathomable rampage.

Rather than condem and vow revenge these remarkable people did the most difficult thing of all...they lived their ideals of forgiveness and love.

How does this work?

More accurately, why does it seem so difficult to do something that is supposed to make my life easier? I’m exploring bringing in an assistant. Someone to help me reduce the administrivia that’s all around me. I’ve had assistants before and it’s almost always required more effort ensuring that they knew what to do, where to find what was required and, more importantly, that the quality was what I needed. 

I was imagining having an assistant and noticed how uncomfortable the notion felt in my body. I felt encumbered and clumsy. It was almost like wearing an oversized pair of clown shoes where I had to be very deliberate and attentive lest I trip as I moved forward. Progress was definitely slower in my mind’s eye. 

Intellecutually, I fully understand the value of having an assistant. Realistically, I do need one if I’m going to be as effective as I want to be. And that I believe is my key. The “for the sake of what” needs to be more compelling than simply handling the administrivia. That’s not a “big” enough reason. If that is my focus I will never be comfortable with an assistant. In order to grow into the clown shoes my purpose – my "for the sake of what" – must be much larger. It must be large enough to allow me to fill the shoes and wear them with comfort. Literally, because ideals are big it takes a big person to fully inhabit the shoes worn by one living their ideals. That’s how it works!

Passion Leading to Performance...

What is it about how I view myself and my place in life that empowers the reasons and stories in my life? Especially the ones I use to explain and justify why I don't have what I say I want?

What am I passionate about? This is my identity. It is my "ideal" life. It is the life born from the imago cells of my core (“imago” is the word used for the final & perfect stage of an insect after metamorphosis, e.g. a butterfly) that define who I am and where I belong.

Give me a reason why you weren't able to accomplish something and I'll find for you someone, somewhere, who could accomplish what you didn't. It's not the reason that holds me back. It's the reason's expression as an artifact of something more fundamental. What is it about how I see myself - how I see my place in life - that validates the reason?

Taken as simply one example of the myriad content pieces of my life the reason is given meaning and relevance by the context that frames it. This context is my sense of identity.

The significance of this is that everyone is in some way passionate about their sense of identity. I can't not be. This passion leads to very specific performance characteristics and, eventually, to the result that is my life.

What am I passionate about?

Avoiding Perfection

As a manager, one of the more typical causes of problems encountered is the all too common human desire to be perfect or to perform perfectly. Defaulting to this desire to be and do perfect will encumber the manager, their direct reports, and the organization. It’s our position that the manager is far better off (and far more effective) focusing on striving for doing and being excellent in their performance rather than perfect. There is more than just a semantic difference between the words perfect and excellent – there is also an energetically experienced difference that can either compel greater performance or stop it altogether.

When striving for perfection there is no room for error. The outcome is black or white. The performance, project, result or objective was either delivered according to specification or it wasn’t. Significantly, none of the traditional measures of perfection will typically include the question “does it work or not” as a major consideration. Rather, the question is implied on the front end and it is then assumed that what we are doing will work if it is perfect. The focus becomes perfection of design or process and not workability.

Functionally speaking, excellence refers to workability. Something is excellent when it performs (it works) in a way that creates minimal unintended consequences. It’s not perfect, yet is functions extremely well – it gets the job done. 

The advantage to focusing on excellence is that it keeps the action moving forward – a major concern in most organizations. Essentially, what we are doing is creating an environment for our people to live into their outcome rather than live up to an arbitrary standard of what the elements creating that outcome should be. As a manager it is useful to be familiar with some of the qualitative differences between these two performance standards. 

Perfection has some extremely strong dynamics associated with it. Some are so strong that they can literally shift the focus away from performance and can stop movement altogether. Chief amongst these are the following:

o Focus on protection of a valued self image where there is no room for error

o A lifestyle that operates out of fear (i.e., not being good enough, not measuring up, being “found out”, etc.)

o Major risks are either avoided or highly calculated

o Obsession with a need to control and be “right”

o Critical judgment of self and others

o Scarcity of choices … do it by “the book” or do it “my way and to my standards”

o Focus on protecting what I’ve already got – playing not to lose vs. playing to win

o Focus on mechanism vs. creativity (although creativity is often given as the rationale)

o Primarily concerned about “looking good” … a “me” focus

o Single minded focus on the outcome only (is it perfect)

o Classic win/lose approach to relationships (i.e., “I’m right and you’re wrong”)

As an alternative, a focus on excellence is seen as having the following attributes:

o Willingness (even a desire) to learn from mistakes. Mistakes, while maybe not welcome, are also not seen as something to be avoided…they are recognized as part of the learning process

o Action based on excitement, energy, fun, enthusiasm

o Willingness to take challenging risks

o People operate from clarity of purpose and empowerment

o Readily operating from acceptance and appreciation of differences

o Utilizing creativity and acknowledging the abundance of choice

o Dual focus on the journey as well as the results (“how” we do is as important as “what” we do)

o Concern for the greater good … an inclusionary “we” focus

o Establishes win/win based outcomes

The question for the manager is which of the two approaches is likely to be more generative? It is our position that anything the manager can do to encourage an excellence based approach to work, to the organization’s movement toward its outcomes and to living in general will ultimately produce results faster and results that are far more sustainable and welcome. For a manager to be able to draw their organization’s attention to the differences between the two approaches opens the door to far richer conversations and performance than may otherwise be possible.