Ideals in Motion

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.