The Fires of the Forge

The Personal Becomes Political--Part 2

In my prior post, Part 1 of The Personal Becomes Political, I laid out my beliefs that we have entered a new time unlike any time we’ve seen in our lifetime (yet we are stuck in thinking it is). Therefore, we as of yet are not fully comprehending what is ahead of us as leaders.

The beliefs I shared with you included:

• that the institutions around us are beginning to crumble,
• that our perception that we are separate from the world around us is irreparably torn, and
• that each person is being called to transform as a human being (and leader), so they in turn can participate in resolving this collective challenge.
• that nobody is going to do it for you, for me, for us--including the government—and that what we do personally, individually, in our self-proclaimed small little worlds has a large impact on the world “out there.”

 Ergo, the personal has become political.

Here I’d like to take a look at some beliefs I have about why this challenge isn’t like anything that we’ve seem before, and why trying to do something or use something that we’ve done in the past or that we already know will not work.

As things have become increasingly messy over the past decade, look at what is happening: people are becoming increasingly polarized in their views. What does this mean, to become more polarized? It means an idea becomes the ideal and then becomes concretized (written in stone) and therefore fundamental. In other words, what started as an idea whose time had come becomes frozen in time. Which, of course, is not life. Life moves. So does time. So ideas must, and ideals don't.

Think about what you hear. “If you are not with us you are against us” is the rallying cry of fear-based people turning and running towards something they believe will make them secure. Their ideology. Absolutes. Sacred cows.

People—including leaders—who are consumed by anxiety and fear “trip” into their minds, and the mind does what it does best. It separates. It sorts between what we know (these people are with us) and what we do not know (what those people who are not with us are going to do.) This is why we have such a polarized national situation, and of course, a global one: As fear goes up, the unconscious reaction is separativeness. Good and evil. Black and white.

It makes us feel comfortable to eliminate the shades of gray. We become white. Those people who are evil (in our minds) become the darkness we fear so much. We objectify them. “Thou” becomes “it”. You don’t smash “thou”: but you can well feel justified is smashing or killing an “it”. One of the way we objectify people (turn them from human beings to objects, from thou to it) is to label them.

So we’ve got lots of labels these days. To put just a few labels to it, we have increasing poles between Republican and Democrat, between science and religion, between Christian and Muslim, between corporations and activists, between Wall Street and Main Street, etc.

One aspect of polarization is that you get poles, and when you have poles you tend to have something called “swinging between the poles.” Meaning, we find ourselves moving (slamming even) between one and the other. We don’t like the Republican agenda, we vote in Democrat. We don’t like that, so we vote in Republicans. Trying to placate our spouse doesn’t work, so we get angry. That has a bad effect, so we go back to placating. Which makes us angry. Running up credit cards drives the economy up (and out of control), so we save. Then saving slows the economy because of our obsession with growth (believing that adds value), so we are told to spend. Get the idea?

Swinging between poles doesn’t exactly constitute progress. It’s a distraction and makes us feel like we are doing something. We are. We are biding time while digging a deeper hole. Great. Sign me up.

So we’ve got those who run to one pole or the other. They’ve got names for one another. Each thinks the other is a pig-headed, evil, fundamentalist (or Zionist), or one is a bitch and the other a bastard, or whatever. (Notice the labels, which objectify.) 

But what about the folks that hang out in the middle, appearing to be middle way people?

I’d have to say that most of the people who stand in between the fundamentalists at either pole aren’t neutral, or open. They’re numb, confused and uncertain what they stand for and “vote” for the opposite of whichever most recently screwed up. And bide their time hoping the problem will go away or that someone will finally deal with it.

So what is the problem with this polarization? Numero uno, it is fear-based. And fear-driven people make stupid decisions. Numero dos, neither side has the solution. For one reason, because in setting up their end of the pole, they concretized the problem. For another, because they haven’t seen themselves in the problem (the other is the problem, they believe), they cannot possibly see a solution.

The long and the short of it is this: the poles keep the problem in place. Dialed in and locked down. And one pole railing against the other only locks it down more. And the problem is becoming so big, that the poles are starting to vibrate and shake, and something’s gotta give. And when it does, I don’t think it will be raining rose petals.

Let’s look at some other reactions to these times.

Some of the people seem to think that returning to the “old ways”—simple, pure, principled, etc—will save us (well, to be clear, it may at least save them). I love the idea of returning to simpler times. I really do. To principles, faith and all those things. But let’s put some intellectual rigor to it, shall we?

First of all, were we ever there? Hmmm? Do you see what I mean? Were we ever in the old ways, doing the old ways? Being the old ways. No. We weren’t. We intended to, and didn’t. Therefore, is it proven through our experience? Errr, no. And if it is not proven through our own personal experience, but raised through regret that we never went there, it is more of a longing, isn’t it, than a knowing?

Now, let’s challenge the notion that we can do an about-face and retrace our steps to those old ways we never did and regret that we didn’t.

Retracing our steps to find and take that fork in the road we "should" have taken and didn’t isn’t going to work. Why? Because that ship has sailed. I don’t think anything from our past is going to save our present so we can have a future. Why? Because the fact we didn’t take that fork we wished we’d taken has had repercussions. That fork was laid out before we triggered those repercussions. Therefore, to all intents and purposes, that fork no longer exists because what we’ve done has changed history. Therefore, we can return perhaps to where the fork was, we can even try to do what we thought the fork was, but the fork itself has been affected by the fact that we didn’t take it. The fork has passed its expiration date.

There is another thing you are seeing more of as well. Activism,and revolt. (Tea Party, anyone?) Will these work? I don’t think so. Railing against something (the education system, the healthcare system, Wallstreet, Democrats, Republicans, the New World Order, Zionists, AIG, Goldman Sachs, BP, or other system, institution, group, or person) only reinforces the system. We said that above. But look deeper.

If a system (or management team, or government, etc) is overthrown, and then the people who overthrew it step in to run it, what we then have is people running things that were against something that no longer exists. Think about that. That’s why people who overthrow things tend to find themselves at some point overthrown. Part of the reason this happens is that once they overthrow whatever “it” is, they find themselves slap dab in the middle of a real identity crisis. They built an identity on what they were against, and somehow underdeveloped the spirit of what they were for. And working for something is an altogether different task than working to overthrow something. I can tear down a fence on my farm in short order. Constructing a new one takes a different skill—and lots more time.

So railing against leaves us dead in the water as well.

Why do I say all these things? Because even the ways in the past that we’ve used to initiate change are insufficient to the task that is before us. We are in the unknown. The problem is too big. Our old approaches created the problem. Our old approaches in the past seemed to work on the "problem" at hand, but did little more than put lipstick on the pig, and “buy us time”. But the music has died. "And it is bye-bye Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy is dry…"

So we aren’t in Kansas anymore, and Toto knows it. And I think you do, too. It’s inconvenient, yes. But to call a spade a shovel, nothing man has created to date (including religions and the doctrines and books thereof) will save us. It has to be something new. And it has to come from you. From within you. The personal becomes political. 

And so what’s the good news? We already have what we need. It’s within us. Problem is, we’ve never pulled it out. So we don’t know what it is. It is time to start doing that, and that will be Part 3 of this series. What you can do about it, and why you should have hope.

One Foot Dangling Off the Edge

I just wanted to say thanks to three readers who have responded to me privately regarding that last post, The Personal Becomes Political. When I sat down to write that on Saturday morning, I wrote 2-3 thousand words on the subject, and lifted the post you read from the first page. So I will be posting the balance throughout this week. 

For now I just want to just take a brief pause and tell you how much it affects a writer like me to hear from people, particularly when that writer has one foot squarely on the ground and the other foot dangling off the edge. I am feeling a lot, and have a lot to share that is clearly not mainstream. And it is very challenging to decide what to share and what not to share. As they say, timing is everything.

To be specific, when I get feedback like this it helps me fine-tune my feelings about both content and timing. I am becoming evermore clear about the direction I am headed personally, the direction my leadership work is taking, the direction my business is taking. Because I know what matters to me, and I know that I can't keep holding that back...

These are truly magical times. Time and time again, we find out what humanity is capable of when our backs are up against the wall. It's when paper warriors fold up like an overused map and real warriors emerge from places and within people you might not expect. The long and the short of it is that these times are perfect for transformation and transfiguration: they were made for it. Spirit has responded with the perfect dynamics in which to bust our move, make our bid, claim our power, and truly--I mean truly--create the new. Together. In will-to-good and through right relations.

Thanks for listening, thanks for reading, and thanks to three people who made my day after launching a post I was very, very anxious about posting... because, for me, it was real. It was me.

Your friend on the journey, 

Otis

"one of your best yet!"

"Wow, Otis! You have so eloquently rumbled the volcano that is ready to explode within many of us! You need to publish!"

"I’m so glad that you are writing your blog again. Heavy, thought provoking, real, scary and at the same time . . . full of hope."

The Personal Becomes Political--Part 1

My last post drew some very supportive feedback from others feeling the tensions in the web of business, leadership and life. So I decided to write a series of posts that go into a little more detail. And after this series, I’ll be posting on what I’m doing myself in response to the tensions I feel. First, let’s go a little deeper into the tensions and concerns that many of us feel building, the anxiety we are feeling, and where the desire to act--to do things we've never done before, in a bigger way than we've ever done them--may be coming from. 

Jim Collins in his books Good to Great and Built to Last outlined several key attributes of top leaders: one is they confront the brutal facts. That is what our aim is here. To do just that. The reason 99% of leaders won't and don't confront the brutal facts is that brutal facts are highly inconvenient, often unbelievable, assail our "common sense" and rock the paradigms we so desperately cling to. Let's stand shoulder to shoulder and peer through the haze and see if we can see what we happen to be feeling anyway...

 I was sitting on an airplane this week next to a guy reading a book called Too Big to Fail—The inside story of how Wall Street and Washington fought to save the financial system—and themselves.  And at the airport bookstore, I see End the Fed, by Congressman Ron Paul. And on the plane last month I see a suited businessman reading, of all things, Why Civilizations Fail. And in the airport bookstore is the Time Magazine of June 7^th with the cover story “Why Being Pope Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry.” It is a 10 page article of the building troubles of the Catholic church.

Have you ever seen such in mainstream thought? Yes, that kind of stuff is always out there on the fringes. But mainstream? 

At the root of these articles and best sellers is a thought: corporate, government, economic, political and even religious entities and institutions are poised to begin collapsing on themselves even though those who run them and profit from them are desperately trying to prop them up.

Consciously or unconsciously, I think we are all feeling it. All of us, whether we are avoiding it in our awareness or not. We’re collectively in trouble. If all this has you feeling on the edge, and wondering if you are losing your grip on reality, maybe we are on the edge and that is the new reality. Maybe that is the brutal fact. And so feeling on the edge is more normal than crazy, and feeling normal is more crazy than normal.

What up’s the ante is this. This appears global but it happens to be very personal. Deep personal stuff. Down in our psyches. I will get to this personal aspect of these world-wide challenges in a few moments, but let’s first get a feeling for it by looking at the symbolism of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. Can you bear watching the streaming video of the oil on www.cnn.com and not feel it in the pit of your stomach or in a lump in your throat? What a perfect symbolism. In the vast depths and darks of the Gulf, there we are. In the vast depths and darks of us, there that plume of oil is. We are in it and it is in us. 

As we watch that plume of oil, for some reason it can have the power to tear at the arbitrary and illusionary separation between us and the world around us. That separative perception that made us once feel safe and impervious (and yet excruciatingly alone) is collapsing, too. And if that isn't personal, I don't know what is. 

For those with the sensitivity to feel it, all this can feel very confusing to a “normal” frame of reference. Look at the sum total of what we've covered above: Our world is getting rocked externally as the institutions we thought would protect, save and keep us secure wobble on their axes, and at the same time our internal gyroscopes are getting a recalibration as our false sense of separation from the world (and nature) around us takes one on the chin. If that doesn't have you feeling like you want to party like it's 1999, I don't know what will.

So what does it all mean? Why are some of us feeling such a strong desire to shake ourselves from our self-imposed constraints, to make our bid for freedom, and to actually do something that matters? I mean really matters. Not like kind-a, sort-a matters, but is a part of and directly contributes to building something new, relevant, essential and big? As writer Eric Francis recently wrote about these times and the need for each of us to step up and step forward, 

"What an awesome opportunity for cultivating maturity and taking leadership. We can, if we want, design the prototype of a new society [during the changes we are in today]: with a different basis economy, new energy resources and a fair model of governance."  

So what does it all mean? First, it means we are hearing a collective call to action where right relations and cooperation with one another in creating new forms and structures and paradigms is an act of survival, and secondly it is a call to reclaim our personal power and personal responsibility. 

Without personal power and personal responsibility, we're impotent to participate in this in any meaningful way. For two reasons. One, because no one is going to carry our cross for us. Two, because in picking up our cross to bear we accept responsibility, and in transfiguring ourselves in dealing with that cross we claim our power and gain our freedom. Further, what can we give to a new way of working, living and being together if we are still working from the old paradigms? Simply put, as new tribes form to address these changes, there can't be a weak link in the chain like we have had the luxury to tolerate in business (and government, etc.) up to now. Each person must be strong, powerful, competent and confident.

A little deeper dive into personal responsibility and personal power. I offer this. For many decades now, we’ve consistently, continually, increasingly outsourced our personal responsibility to government in exchange for security. And not just government. We’ve relied on many other “experts”—religious, scientific, corporate, education, financial, coaches, consultants and counselors, etc.—to increasingly tell us who we are, what we need, what’s best for us, who to be afraid of, how we will be made secure and, generally, what to want, what to believe, what to do, when to do it and how to do it. 

And let’s just say that as we've given away our power in exchange for "the good life" and perceived security, we've thrown the accounts sorely out of balance. No one is at fault but each of us individually. More on that later. And speaking of accounts thrown out of balance...

We've consumed resources as if they aren't alive, as if they are not related to the whole, as if we can throw something "away" (on a round planet--one biosphere--have you ever wondered where "away" is?) and as if we don't depend on the source of those resources to replenish them. Our consumption of resources has outstripped nature's capacity to replenish them so we can use more. We aren't just running a deficit in the federal government, we in a deficit with the Earth Mother. The federal government is scared (and therefore doing crazy things). Our Earth Mother has a different approach.

Nature doesn't have a mood or an attitude, she has a task. Absorb as much imbalance as she can, hoping we will wake up, and restore balance when it becomes essential regardless of the impact it has on us. There is no guarantee humanity will survive that rebalancing and restoration: it all depends on how far out of balance it becomes before correction, and how we cooperate with the inevitable return to balance of that in which we breathe, and move, and have our being.

Nature doesn't need us to live: we need nature to live. Leaders have gotten very, very, very far from that absolute truth. We've become detached, insensitive and arrogant. That isn't sustainable. What we've done isn't sustainable. What we are doing isn't sustainable. What we are trying to preserve is not sustainable. Aside from that, we're cruisin'.

And if you think this "Mother Earth", "green", "sustainable" theme is some stupid notion that doesn't belong in business, I offer an alternative view for your consideration. Here's a news tidbit for you from the American Institute of Public Accountants.

CEOs see dearth of sustainable-business leadership skills
A poll of 700 business leaders reveals that 70% of executives believe their company will face a green-skills crisis during the next five years, in part because of a paucity of people with sustainable-business leadership skills. Nine out of 10 respondents to the British survey said that companies needed to do more to prepare their workers for a sustainable economy, and only 15% said their training programs were already well-developed. BusinessGreen (7/1)

What may be more true than your current view on the relevance of "nature", "Earth Mother", "green" and "sustainable" in business is this: if you don't begin to integrate that into your paradigm you may become marginalized and therefore irrelevant as a leader. And there is something very interesting about this new leadership quality: you can't fake it. There is no pretending. If you learn all that you need to know about the subject, but don't believe it in your heart and live it in your life, you will produce thistles and not figs. Isn't that beautiful? Finally, a leadership frontier that can't be faked. For long, anyway.

If you are getting a feel for the various points covered above, you are led to this: the personal has become political. And why is it so personal? I offer this as a potential brutal fact: all that you love is now at stake, we are running out of time and what you personally do about it matters. That’s about as personal as it gets. There’s a gnawing feeling in ya that’s saying, “what the hell am I really leaving to my children and their children?” "What is it to leave them money but a world that is gray, communities that are empty and cold, resources that are depleted and human hearts that are broken?" "How safe are my family and I if others aren't?" And the veil of illusion that government or religion or Wall Street or anything else is going to change the current course is cracking open.

The personal has become political. That’s where we are. And I think it is even a little more complicated than that. What is complicated about it also happens to up the ante even more. What is complicated about it is that nothing that we currently have is sufficient to fix this, because all that we currently have led up to this. Therefore, I think it might to explore this in the next post in order to better grok what you may be feeling and what we may be dealing with. Anyway, I believe that if we are to confront the brutal facts we've got more ground to cover. And we will get to that next.

The Ties That Bind

I'm in a period of reflecting and re-directing, charting a new way forward. Outwardly I'm busy, doing some of the best work I've ever done. Inwardly I'm surfing on the building tensions in the web of life I feel so strongly right now. 

I feel that old inner angst. But it is building. As I drove through the Oregon countryside yesterday, I got a feeling for what I think a few leaders are feeling today. I wonder if one is you.

I saw in my mind two turning circles--the left one was the past, the right one was the future, and where the circles touched and sparked was the present. What did it mean, I wondered?

The first part of the inner angst seemed to relate to the right turning wheel, the future. I guess we all have something that draws us towards a better future. We yearn for it really. Sometimes it is a vision. Sometimes it is the belief we can have a vision. Sometimes it is a specific impact or result we know we are capable of. Sometimes it is only a strong feeling that we can have a significant impact or result though we haven't a clue what it may be. It doesn't 'matter whether it is specific or abstract. It is the future, and it is not ours to know beforehand. Nonetheless, we yearn for it.

The bottom line is that we sense potential. We sense our potential. We sense it affecting others, life, in such a positive and meaningful way. Incessantly, we yearn to become at-one with that without even knowing fully what "at one" means. Perhaps we will serve through that at-one-ment. And in so doing--in that atonement--we will become whole again.

And yet there is that left circle spinning in the opposite direction, the past. We can call it the past, and yet it is not. It is not because it has not passed. It is the unresolved past. The shadow that trails us. You've got one. I've got one, too. It is the merit badge we didn't earn. The promotion we didn't get. The insult that cut to the quick. Getting fired even through we knew it was coming. The violation of trust we could bury and move past but never get over. Whatever it is for each of us, it is our story. And it defines us if it remains unresolved.

The unresolved past is the haunting cry of experiences had but lessons unlearned, of learning trapped in crevices too dark and scary to probe for fear of the serpent we'll stir. So we don't. We move forward. Perhaps flee is more accurate. The problem is only the hands of time are moving, we aren't. We are trapped in that time, reliving it day by day as we unconsciously repeat behaviors mired in the lack of the learning and vain attempts to avoiding repeating those times.

And here we are in the present, sparks flying between two turning wheels in counterspin. The right hand wheel calls us forward like the siren's song--the promise of it, the potential of it, the adventure of it. A star ready to unleash. It calls our heart.

Yet in this moment, in the backwaters of our minds and emotions, the past calls us, too. Those unresolved issues, a wailing cry, and our reproducing right here and right now in this very moment--behaviors coming from the ignorance of the shadow cast by a shadow undelivered. It clouds the mind. It roars in the emotions. And it stifles the compelling, quiet whisper of the heart.

What lies between the heart that whispers and the mind clouded and clicking? Easy. Measure north from the heart. South from the mind. In between, it is a lump in our throat. The center of our will. The lump? No more than the upward motion of the heart and our will stuffed down and suppressed by the mind. A mind recreating behaviors from a past long past but unresolved and unliberated. 

Now, with the world so desperately in need of true leadership, the call to move forward becomes more urgent. It quickens. The bell tolls. We hear it. Calling us to take our rightful places in the destiny of man. Each of us matters. Significantly.

But oh, those cables. That unresolved past. The trapped knowledge we need and yet is buried there alongside the pain, knowledge we need to be able to deal with that future we long for. Power we need to release to handle the blows that come with stepping onto the vanguard and into the future. So it amps up, the angst. The pressure builds.

The call to duty in the emerging right circle, the future, will turn with or without us. The stupid things we do (and believe and think) right now that circumvent us from responding to a call we hear to serve it. That unresolved past, the shadow... it binds. And the left wheel spins its counter-revolutions.

So what happens? Driven in the present by behaviors arising from an unresolved past, we create more of the past in the present, which tomorrow becomes the future. So the past be-comes the present, the present the past, and the future, driven by actions in the present born of the past, bears nothing of our potential. It bears more... past. The ties bind. The angst builds if we do not answer. And one day, perhaps as our spirit begins to leave our body, our earthly form, at death, the tears will come unbidden.

There is no magic bullet. There is no one who will save us. There is no calvary. "No guru, no method, no teacher. Just you and me, and nature, and the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. In the garden. Wet with rain."  (Van Morrison)

There are no excuses that work any longer. Can you feel that?  What to do? Just about anything other than our normal doings. Take different action, do small things you've never done before and don't fully understand. Accept the consequences and deal with the anxiety they trigger.

Every act you take that is not from your past cuts a fiber in the ties that bind. In effect, break the system. Break down your internal system of self-constraints, self-behavior, that hold you down. It is an act of will. Through your new doings--acts of freedom unfettered by  your unresolved past--you resolve your past.  You clear your past. You release the knowledge and power trapped therein. Claim it. And with that taking, cut the ties that bind. You don't need to understand your past to stop living from it. Do that, and take your rightful place.  

What's the inner angst? That I know this and am not acting on it. When the shadow of the unresolved past is as powerful as the light, I can therefore navigate through neither. So as I work forward from here, that is what I'm working with. Breaking free of my unresolved past. Stepping into the the future. Becoming present. And I find that a liberating possibility.

The Shell Game

I'm wrapping up my week, planning the next, and emptying the email inbox. I just scanned today's news brief from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. It triggered some thoughts as a follow up to my last post.

One headline is "Senate approves sweeping overhaul of financial regulation"

The Senate approved legislation to overhaul financial regulation with a 59-39 vote. The bill would establish a consumer-protection agency within the Federal Reserve, prohibit banks from proprietary trading, boost the government's ability to wind down a failing institution, bolster oversight of derivatives trading and establish a council of systemic-risk regulators.

Now does that make ya feel better? If so, you might want to YouTube Representative Ron Paul's views on the Federal Reserve. Most Americans don't realize the Federal Reserve is not an institution of the Federal Government. It's management structure and control is quite, well, obscure. So who exactly is doing what for whom? And their motives are? Interests are? 

Another headline is:

Fed official says Europe's debt woes could hit U.S. economy

Source: CNBC

"Federal Reserve Governor Daniel Tarullo told a House panel that Europe's debt crisis could emerge as a "significant external shock" to the domestic economy."

When you step back and look at the global financial picture, what do you see? The US market tanked, and took the rest of the world with it. So what did we do. We spread a TARP over it and pumped money in under it, under the belief we could avoid the consequences of violating capitalism. Same thing now happening in Europe. Sovereign debt out of control, infuse more money. Next stop, Capitol Hill. Burgeoning US debt makes us vulnerable to that external shock. 

Look at all that money moving around. Poof, it disappears here. Pop, more appears from there. Takes the pow out of the poof, that pop does. Or does it? Energy is neither created nor destroyed, right? And money is power, right? So does this strike you as a bit of a shell game?

What am I getting at? In my last post I wrote about how important it is for leaders to wipe the sleepy out of their eyes and get focused on the important matters. One of the important matters is to ask questions, to get informed, and to realize that we have to poke beyond the mainstream media to see what is going on. It certainly isn't what meets the eye. 

If you want to lead something, lead a return to what is real. Build on rock, not sand. Move with your heart, not with the masses...

Another headline is that even though the economy is wobbly, more and more business start ups are happening. 

Despite recession, study finds record number of business startups
A study of entrepreneurship found that the creation of businesses hit an all-time high in the U.S. last year.

I find this very inspiring. I think this is a flight from the illusion that someone else is going to take care of us. More and more people seem to realize that as scary as starting something dependent on "us" is, taking that action to step into the unknown of our own capabilities is less scary than waiting in the employment line or hanging out in companies that appear to have lost their heart, or, at a minimum, their way.

What does this mean to me? I see a shift in my focus. My future business development efforts will be to work in socially responsible companies, and with leaders who are socially responsible. What does socially responsible mean? Socially Responsible Business is a venture (generally for-profit) that seeks to leverage business for a more just and sustainable world. (wikipedia)

People, profit and planet. Anything less than all three is no-where's-ville for me. I'm turning 50. I don't have all the time in the world left. I do have a vast amount of experience both in the system and of the system, both in leadership and of leadership, both in being a human and in being of a human. And moreover, I have a feeling for where leadership needs to go. 

And I'm not talking about a tweak here or there: I'm talking about a transfiguration. Not a makeover. I'm talking nothing less than a chain reaction that is initiated and sounded out from the very core of a leader and rippling outward into significant changes all around that leader. I'm talking about changing the world by changing the self.

Want to find me? Look on the vanguard: I'm moving to the front lines. I will be working with fierce leaders who don't think "people" and "planet" are for pansies and that profit is primary. I'm talking about innovators that think "and"--as in people, planet and profit--not "or". I'm talking abou the kind of ferocity where they will level their steely gaze into the eyes of another leader whose activities jeopardize the chance for the women and children who will inherit our legay to live in a world of green, white and blue, as opposed to shades of gray. Those are my people, my tribe, and that is where you will find me. Not hypnotized by some shell game and the social conditioning of our time...

I am clear on that direction, and I will be sharing it with you in due time.

 

The Tinny Sound of the Inconsequential

Let's do a quick recap of recent news, and look at where you and I are as leaders vis-a-vis that news.

... a volcano, an oil volcano, a bitterly fought election in the UK, massive flooding in Tennessee and other states, tornados in Oklahoma, banking fraud by Goldman Sachs exposed that contributed to precipitating a recession they profited from, a 1,000 point dive in the stock market blamed on machines, Greece in financial meltdown with other EU countries joining the parade, gold piercing an all time high exceeding $1,200 an ounce, and an attempted terrorist attack in New York City.

And here's a quotation by G. William Hoagland, a former fiscal-policy adviser to Republican senators, from a New York Times article. 

"I used to think it would take a global financial crisis to get both parties to the table, but we just had one. These days I wonder if this country is even governable."

What's that got to do with you and i, as leaders? I think the answer may be, "a lot." As national, international and global events keep upping the ante on our future and our psyches, what is happening to us? What are we doing? What action are we taking? I'd like to take those questions in that order.

What is happening to us? I can't speak for you, but yesterday as I was reading and responding to email and calls, i found myself becoming increasingly annoyed. Things started sound "tinny", as if played through an old radio with a worn out speaker with no bass, no substance, no base. And I realized that so much of what we are doing today, simply doesn't matter. It's like we are in shock--increasingly numb to the magnitude of events going on around us--and going ever deeper into Facebook, texting, iPhone apps, relationship squabbles that go nowhere, meetings that are rudderless and soul-less, chasing goals that are hollow, and all other matter of escapisms. That leaves me wondering... what the hell kind of shock is it going to take to jolt us out of Neverland?

What are we doing? In short, avoiding. Avoiding any notion that we have any power to change the situation. Hello? 

What could we be doing? Waking up would be a start. Systematically eliminating the multiple ways we violate ourselves, others and the planet would be a good next step. The only way I can make sense of the escalating nature of national, international and global affairs is that spirit is knocking on the door more and more loudly to wake us up from a very deep slumber to a reality that we really don't want to see, but must. And I am not the only business writer and educator saying that.

What action are we taking? Let's call a spade a shovel, shall we? The answer might be... nothing of real consequence. Sure, we are controlling expenses, saving more, watching cash flow, looking for ways to increase revenue, striving to keep our people feeling stable, etc. But those are old responses to old challenges. And I don't think we're in Kansas any more, Toto. At some point, shouldn't we take stock and ask ourselves, "do all those old, contractive and defensive type of actions have a hill of beans worth of applicability to what is happening here, now, with the stakes so high?"

The most practical action we can take is to awaken spiritually. Change all the other things you like to try to align yourself and your business with this brave new world and surf on these waves of change. But frankly I have to say that if all those actions are not accompanied with a deep dive into the core of our being--where all the hidden answers can be found and peace, surrender, love and true courage abide--our actions will be nothing more than folly, than chasing after the wind. And if too many of us indulge in that for too long, we're hosed.

That's how I see it, anyway. 

Planning: Step 3--Behavior, Introduction

Before we leap into Section 3, working with the Source of your performance--you, a little context is warranted. This is probably the least understood area of performance, and the most important. To provide full context would fill a multiple day workshop, a book or books. I seek to give you the brass tacks of it in one post.

If you and I sat down and honestly looked at your current level of performance in producing results, I would help you explore, initially, three areas. 

1) Whether you know the results you want to produce, and whether you are producing them. 

2) Whether you follow effective processes and have effective systems to produce results. 

3) Whether your relations with people are effective in producing results.

Ponder on that. 

Is it the results you produce, the way that you produce them, or the way you relate with others while producing results that would have the greatest impact on taking your self to the next level of leadership? I am choosing my words very carefully here. And I'd like you to re-read that question now. Either write down the first thing that comes to your mind, or say it out loud.

Let's take those three items in order. 

Is it the results you produce? In this area, the first thing you need is to know what results to produce. As silly as that sounds, many executives and leaders I know are not crystal clear on that. I'm serious. I mean, they know generally, but the lack of specific definition is amazing. That is why, to this point, much of this exercise has been about getting you to define--measurably--what results you are going to produce. With that commitment, followed by the clarity you will receive in pursuing and producing those results, the results you want to produce will become evermore clear. The magic here is being specific, committing, and doing.

Is it the way you produce results? Many leaders produce results, but do so very inefficiently. They burn inordinate amounts of resources--time, money and people. This, in effect, puts a "lid" on their performance. If you are not continually honing your systems, structures and approaches, you automatically place a lid on your performance. 

The second part of your plan, Initiatives, is designed to address the way you produce results in several ways. First, what most people write as their Initiatives are the things they need to do to specifically produce the Results in section 1. Sometimes, the initiatives are about putting in place new systems, structure, approaches or whatever. Second, what you will see, if you follow this all the way through, is that I am going to give you an approach to getting those initiatives done. Third, as your last initiative, I asked you what you could do to improve your ability to get all those initiatives and results done.

That last initiative is very important, and I think I gave it short shrift. That last initiative, the one intended to improve your overall capacity to produce results, is a very important one. It is often something very practical (like spending the first hour of every day taking action on my single most important result or initiative), yet it brings us up against something very personal. 

What that right action brings us up against is a limiting behavior that we know is counterintuitive and counter productive. Yet we do  not do the new behavior and we continue to old, counterproductive behavior even though it defies all logic. Why? Because it is psycho-logic, that's why. We are committed to doing one thing (improve performance), but we are equally committed to something else that nullifies the former. We have one foot on the gas and the other on the brake, for goodness sakes. All of us.

The counter-commitment, the having the foot on the brake, arises from an inner, often unconscious, anxiety. That anxiety can be so strong that it makes us sometimes feel that if we were to do that right, logical, productive thing (like spending that first hour doing what's most important), that we'd jump out of our skin, or, worse yet, life as we know it would end. Know that feeling? It's a bit of a buzz killer when it comes to doing that new, more productive, more logical thing, isn't it? And the fact that leaders have no effective way to deal with it is the single most important reason leaders hit the lid (a.k.a. the Peter Principle) and the reason why leaders underperform as mentors (thereby supporting others in reaching and then being constrained by their own lids).

We will get to how to deal with that, because there is a way to do so. And it is neither complicated nor easy. Anyone can do it. And there are only four steps to it. But that inner anxiety is so strong, that even a good, effective, proven process for dealing with it is no match for it if it is not an act of survival to do it. We will get to that. But not now.

For now I want you to review that last initiative, the one that is intended to improve the process, structure or means by which you produce results. Make sure it is a good one. Make sure it has leverage. Make sure it is something you can do methodically and systematically to produce better, more consistent results week in and week out. You probably already know what it is, because it is something you are consistently telling yourself you should do, but you do not. You've got excuses not to, and the excuses win. I know. It happens to me, too.

For me, this one thing is doing David Allen's weekly planning process (two hours a week), followed by spending 30 minutes per day, first thing in the morning, reviewing the priorities I set in that 2 hours of weekly planning, and mapping out the next action to achieve those priorities. That's only 10% of a 40 hour work week (even less of a 50). And my performance goes up exponentially. In other words, the ROI on that time is staggering. Yet it is so hard to do. But each time I do it, the grip of my inner anxiety loosens.

Let's come back to point. I've covered the first item--the results you produce. I've covered the second item in some detail--the processes you use to produce results. And I've asked you to verify that your last initiative, is a bull's eye in terms of addressing the single most important thing you could systematically begin doing to improve the way you produce results. That leaves the third item.

Is it the way you relate to others in producing the results? This is a very hard area for leaders to grasp. It becomes very personal, and there usually is a pretty significant blind spot here. And it is so hard to see because it is so painful to see it. We craft an immunity system, in fact, to protect us from seeing it. And that immunity system includes rationalizations and justifications for continuing to relate to others in ways that aren't exactly kosher for us and for them. 

Where we are headed with Section 3, is to address that specific area--the way we relate with others. Now, you may say, what does that have to do with Source, with changing myself? Everything. 

You see, it is nigh impossible for you to start by working directly with your own self because we all lack the sobriety to see ourselves clearly. Therefore, the most practical approach is also an indirect approach. The indirect approach is how we relate to others. If we give our all to working with that--how we relate to others--at some point it will dawn on us that we are actually working out way back to the Source. And to the way we relate with ourselves.

Okay. That is the context I think you need. Where we are headed in the next post is into Section 3 of your one pager, towards understanding the Source of your performance, who you really are, by way of looking at how you need to change the way you work with others in producing the results you produce. 

It is the key to success. It is, in fact, emotional intelligence for leaders made practical.

Planning: Step 3--Behavior, Introduction

Before we leap into Section 3, working with the Source of your performance--you, a little context is warranted. This is probably the least understood area of performance, and the most important. To provide full context would fill a multiple day workshop, a book or books. I seek to give you the brass tacks of it in one post.

If you and I sat down and honestly looked at your current level of performance in producing results, I would help you explore, initially, three areas. 1) Whether you know the results you want to produce, and whether you are producing them. 2) Whether you follow effective processes and have effective systems to produce results. 3) Whether your relations with people are effective in producing results.

Ponder on that. Is it the results you produce, the way that you produce them, or the way you relate with others while producing results that would have the greatest impact on taking your self to the next level of leadership? I am choosing my words very carefully here. And I'd like you to re-read that question now. Either write down the first thing that comes to your mind, or say it out loud.

Let's take those three items in order. 

Is it the results you produce? In this area, the first thing you need is to know what results to produce. As silly as that sounds, many executives and leaders I know are not crystal clear on that. I'm serious. I mean, they know generally, but the lack of specific definition is amazing. That is why, to this point, much of this exercise has been about getting you to define--measurably--what results you are going to produce. With that commitment, followed by the clarity you will receive in pursuing and producing those results, the results you want to produce will become evermore clear. The magic here is being specific, committing, and doing.

Is it the way you produce results? Many leaders produce results, but do so very inefficiently. They burn inordinate amounts of resources--time, money and people. This, in effect, puts a "lid" on their performance. If you are not continually honing your systems, structures and approaches, you automatically place a lid on your performance. 

The second part of your plan, Initiatives, is designed to address the way you produce results in several ways. First, what most people write as their Initiatives are the things they need to do to specifically produce the Results in section 1. Sometimes, the initiatives are about putting in place new systems, structure, approaches or whatever. Second, what you will see, if you follow this all the way through, is that I am going to give you an approach to getting those initiatives done. Third, as your last initiative, I asked you what you could do to improve your ability to get all those initiatives and results done.

That last initiative is very important, and I think I gave it short shrift. That last initiative, the one intended to improve your overall capacity to produce results, is a very important one. It is often something very practical (like spending the first hour of every day taking action on my single most important result or initiative), yet it brings us up against something very personal. 

What that right action brings us up against is a limiting behavior that we know is counterintuitive and counter productive. Yet we do  not do the new behavior and we continue to old, counterproductive behavior even though it defies all logic. Why? Because it is psycho-logic, that's why. We are committed to doing one thing (improve performance), but we are equally committed to something else that nullifies the former. We have one foot on the gas and the other on the brake, for goodness sakes. All of us.

The counter-commitment, the having the foot on the brake, arises from an inner, often unconscious, anxiety. That anxiety can be so strong that it makes us sometimes feel that if we were to do that right, logical, productive thing (like spending that first hour doing what's most important), that we'd jump out of our skin, or, worse yet, life as we know it would end. Know that feeling? It's a bit of a buzz killer when it comes to doing that new, more productive, more logical thing, isn't it? And the fact that leaders have no effective way to deal with it is the single most important reason leaders hit the lid (a.k.a. the Peter Principle) and the reason why leaders underperform as mentors (thereby supporting others in reaching and then being constrained by their own lids).

We will get to how to deal with that, because there is a way to do so. And it is neither complicated nor easy. Anyone can do it. And there are only four steps to it. But that inner anxiety is so strong, that even a good, effective, proven process for dealing with it is no match for it if it is not an act of survival to do it. We will get to that. But not now.

For now I want you to review that last initiative, the one that is intended to improve the process, structure or means by which you produce results. Make sure it is a good one. Make sure it has leverage. Make sure it is something you can do methodically and systematically to produce better, more consistent results week in and week out. You probably already know what it is, because it is something you are consistently telling yourself you should do, but you do not. You've got excuses not to, and the excuses win. I know. It happens to me, too.

For me, this one thing is doing David Allen's weekly planning process (two hours a week), followed by spending 30 minutes per day, first thing in the morning, reviewing the priorities I set in that 2 hours of weekly planning, and mapping out the next action to achieve those priorities. That's only 10% of a 40 hour work week (even less of a 50). And my performance goes up exponentially. In other words, the ROI on that time is staggering. Yet it is so hard to do. But each time I do it, the grip of my inner anxiety loosens.

Let's come back to point. I've covered the first item--the results you produce. I've covered the second item in some detail--the processes you use to produce results. And I've asked you to verify that your last initiative, is a bull's eye in terms of addressing the single most important thing you could systematically begin doing to improve the way you produce results. That leaves the third item.

Is it the way you relate to others in producing the results? This is a very hard area for leaders to grasp. It becomes very personal, and there usually is a pretty significant blind spot here. And it is so hard to see because it is so painful to see it. We craft an immunity system, in fact, to protect us from seeing it. And that immunity system includes rationalizations and justifications for continuing to relate to others in ways that aren't exactly kosher for us and for them. 

Where we are headed with Section 3, is to address that specific area--the way we relate with others. Now, you may say, what does that have to do with Source, with changing myself? Everything. You see, it is nigh impossible for you to start by working directly with your own self because we all lack the sobriety to see ourselves clearly. Therefore, the most practical approach is also an indirect approach. The indirect approach is how we relate to others. If we give our all to working with that--how we relate to others--at some point it will dawn on us that we are actually working out way back to the Source. And to the way we relate with ourselves.

Okay. That is the context I think you need. Where we are headed in the next post is into Section 3 of your one pager, towards understanding the Source of your performance, who you really are, by way of looking at how you need to change the way you work with others in producing the results you produce. 

It is the key to success. It is, in fact, emotional intelligence for leaders made practical.

Planning: Step 2--Supporting Initiatives, Part 2

We’ve got a little more work to do before Section 2 of your plan--Initiatives--is completed. Let's get right to it.

Up to this point you may have up to 8 of the 9 Initiatives spoken for—the first one is taken by The One Big Project you listed in section 1, Results. The other seven by each of the key results. 

That leaves Initiative number nine wide open, and, as they say, nature abhors a vacuum. So let's fill it. Number nine is addressed by asking yourself this question:

When I look at Section 1, Results, as a whole, is there one project I could undertake that would actually support achieving virtually all of that?

Let's face it. Up to this point the planning process has been very linear. And there's good reason for that: if you add something linear to the somewhat circular process most folks use in planning, you get an upward spiral. Then you actually go somewhere as opposed to continually walking in circles and wondering why you are right back to where you were even though you had the best of intentions to actually leave the neighborhood for once.

The question you are asking is a holistic, systems-oriented question. And it is perfect for slot number 9, because 9 is the number of completion. If you get a really good internal response to the question, you (and your results) will be completed in more ways than you can imagine. Imagine that.   

Examples? I’m not giving you much direction on this. Reach deep and get real with yourself and you will find more than an example. You will find an answer. 

I will give you a suggestion, though. Sometimes an initiative to stop doing something is more important than an initiative that adds something to that 45 pound pack of yours you are carrying on this adventure from here to your key results. Roger that?

For those who have worked through my prior planning approach, I want to be clear. This is an initiative--a project--that will affect everything else. It is something you can do in order to make achieving all (or some) of the other initiatives and results you've listed easier. At this point I am not talking about a change to your behavior. We'll get to that. 

So what types of projects might affect all else? A project to delegate more effectively to the people on your team. Or implementing some form of organizing structure so your to-do's and desk and inbox and files are not such a mess. Or developing sales skills. Or joining a team of like-minded people rather than continuing to try to go it alone when that is not really your DNA. Or repairing a broken, important relationship. Like with a business partner, or even a broken working relationship with money. 

So give it a go? What would be a good number 9 initiative for you? What initiative or project might support all else? Write that down now, next to 9. (I will remind you again that our mantra is "progress, not perfection." So don't get yerself tied in 'nots if yer number nine ain't purfect yet. Remember, neither are you, and we still love ya. Pass that same feeling along to yer plan.) 

Some final FAQ's regarding Section 2--Initiatives:

What if you have open Initiative slots? Should you load them up with other things that come to you? It’s your plan, so it’s your call. My recommendation, unless you are a planning ace, is no. Don’t. Not until you have been through this particular process at least one time.

What if you now have thought of something bigger than what you wrote in Section 1, Results, and/or Section 2, Initiatives? If you even have to ask, I am worried about you. Change it. Reprioritize what you’ve got, and work it in. Your life is dynamic. Your insights are dynamic. So your plan has to be. (Just don't go changing it willy-nilly, mind you. You know the difference.)

I will leave you with the words of one of my heroes, Dwight Eisenhower, who knew a lot about both plans and planning:

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

Congratulations. You now have defined the most important results you want to produce, both quantitative results and The One Big Project. And you have defined up to 9 supporting initiatives to support you in doing that. 

The first two sections are fairly logical. Section 3, well that gets psychological. And the reason you should care about that is because now we will look at the source. You. 

And, if you remember our diagram (see inset), you will connect that working on Section 1 was/is about getting crystal clear on your desired outcomes (Results), and Section 2 was/is about figuring out what you will be doing (Processes) to achieve that. 

So yes, Section 3. Our journey into Section 3 takes us to the source. Or to the periphery of it, anyway. Things are about to get a lot less linear. But don't worry, we have a process we will be following that is proven and you can use for the rest of your life. So, "ET phone home." Here we go... Let's return to the source and see it with fresh eyes...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Great. That is section 2, the Initiatives, the HOW of Section 1, Results. Next up, how to do section 3.

Planning: Step 2--Supporting Initiatives, Part 1

In the second section of your paper write Initiatives. Write the numbers one through nine. 

The first section you just completed—Results—is the WHAT. This second section you are about to pen—Initiatives—is the HOW. Here we will differentiate between outcomes (results) and the actions we need to take to produce them (process). 

Basically, what you are doing in this section is making choices regarding which of the key outcomes you listed in the Results sections need to be handled as a project, and which do not. Some things you defined in Results may not require defining and doing a sequence of tasks that are out of the ordinary from your normal business or personal processes. Other key outcomes may. It is important that you decide which is which. 

For example, you may have set a revenue target as a key outcome, and your marketing and sales machine is so well-honed that achieving the key outcome of revenue does not require anything out of the ordinary other than your focus on inspecting what you expect. Therefore, that key outcome does not require an initiative. 

However, you may have set a revenue target your current marketing and sales machine cannot support. That key outcome is a candidate for a supporting initiative designed to create a change in your marketing and sales capacity that is sufficient to support the achievement of the key outcome. 

See the difference? It is important that you do. Some key outcomes only need focus. Others need a project—what we call here an initiative—to support the achievement of the key outcome.

Let’s get started.

Next to number one, write “Achieve The One Big Thing.” Look at you. You are on a roll. Basically, I am relieving you of deciding whether The One Big Thing needs to be handled as a project or not. Let’s assume it should be, which is almost always the case.

Now, look at the key results listed in Results: Part A—Key Outcomes. Here’s the process.

1. Look at the first key result.

2. Ask yourself, is some type of project required to achieve that key result? A project is a series of defined steps that get you from point A to point B within a certain timeframe in order to produce a defined result. A project has a defined beginning and end, and the outcome is measurable and observable.

Remember, some key results (like expanding into a new market) may require an initiative—writing out and doing a series of steps. If so, that is a project, an initiative. Other key results (like getting to the gym 24 times in six months) may not because you already know the steps and you just need to focus on it.

3. Decide. If the key result does not need a supporting initiative, go to the next key result and work from 2 down until you are done. If the key result does need an initiative to support it, write the name of the key result next to the next available number in section two.

Continue until you have addressed all key results.

Take stock of where you now are. In section 2, Initiatives, you may have up to 8 of them defined. The first one is to accomplish the One Big Project. Initiatives 2 through 8 are directly related to producing the key results. And you may have less than 8 at this point. That’s fine. What’s with the open slot, number nine? I never thought you’d never ask.