The Fires of the Forge

Update from the Field (Literally)

My wife Sara and I have been quite busy this spring looking for our new house and property. That's been an interesting adventure and very energy and time-consuming. I've owned three homes in my life, but since 2002 have been a rolling stone, living in Park City, Boulder, Atlanta, Santa Fe and now Portland. Sara and I met in 2006 and married in 2007. I lived in Atlanta then, I moved to Santa Fe where she lived knowing that would simply be a launching pad for us to find our place somewhere else.

It seems strange to be looking for property that may be the last land we own. Every prior situation where I have owned property has felt temporary. Mainly, I suppose, because I have always seen a house and property as someplace I live while I work. If work moves, I move. If I move, I change houses. Therefore, I've always been kind of passing through, if you know what I mean. Upwardly mobile executive types who've be so over the past three decades know what I mean, anyway.

But the times they are a changin'. Sara and I feel we are to find and buy some acreage, establish a relationship with it, and connect with community--of the small, local kind. I can do my business from anywhere. At least what I do now.

Yet here's the difference. Doing this with Sara, with this land, and with community--this is now my primary work. My vocation will now revolve around that, rather than where I live revolve around my vocation. That is such an odd feeling.

Yet this is not a change in direction: this is an expansion of possibilities. I know in my heart that I am to work in the realm of leadership, and in supporting leaders in making the shift into these new, post-industrial times where the current form of leadership isn't relevant any longer.

I know that evolution is moving more quickly than leadership has been evolving, that the imbalances we see all around us today are affected by this old form of leadership we cling to, and that leadership is the domain in which I will make my difference in the world. I am blessed with remarkable opportunity in that realm, an incredible company in Texas to work with, and I will give-and-take as much as I can to help them in their journey.

After significant challenges in finding this property (a two year quest) and negotiating through significant issues with the seller and the lender, here we are. We are now under contract (and through the inspection and renegotiation process) to buy 11 beautiful acres in Oregon's wine country. The photos you see here are from that property. The first photo is the house on the property. Very humble, serviceable, and it should hold us for a number of years until we build a sustainable, eco-friendly home on the land.

The second photo is looking east, out the driveway leading into the property. In the near distance you see my sister, brother-in-law and realtor at the entrance to the drive. In the farther distance, the rolling hills of Yamhill county.

Seven years ago I sold my executive home in Park City, Utah, put my skis on top of the car and left that life. I could not have imagined how my life would unfold. How my life would change. The remarkable woman I would meet and marry. The family I'd connect with in the process. How my work would evolve. And that we would be moving to the Pacific northwest to beautiful land adjacent to a 100 acre property with a vineyard on it.

This is Sara, my wife, walking that property the same day those other pictures were taken. I was walking alongside Sara and saw something inexplicably change in her as we walked up the driveway there, together. I started snapping pictures as we both walked, trying to capture an image of what I was seeing and sensing.

A man only needs to glance at his wife and sense what I sensed to know with great confidence that they have found is good--in this case, is their home. He knows in his heart it is simply a matter of him doing his part to make it happen. If you are a male, I know that you know what I mean. It is that feeling you get that you'd move mountains for that woman because of the goodness in her heart and the trust and belief she has in you.

As crazy as these times are, life goes on. There is something deeper. Something changeless, timeless and formless. As churned as the waters have become on the surface, there is stillness down there, underneath, running deep. I sense it in my wife, underneath it all the worry that comes with these changes and times. I felt it as I walked across the rolling hills of this land, feeling it in my blood as my cells mysteriously recalled what my English/Scottish ancestors felt as they walked their heather- and thistle-covered hills in a misty rain. But mainly, I sense it in the depths of my self.

As times become more uncertain--where credit markets and financial icons wobble, fears of pandemic are the news of the day, where the earth labors with ecological issues and a fever, and businesses attempt to find a way forward in a brave, new world--there is something deeper we can find. Leadership, maybe. Roots, well, perhaps. But I think it is love, the kind that comes from having both feet planted firmly on the ground while having a feeling for the direction one needs to move, coupled with a feeling for the next action one needs to take to get there, coupled with the courage required to overcome not knowing exactly what the journey, much less the destination, looks like.

I guess that is leadership, in a general sense. And for me, a male, it is also some specific part of maleness that I'm learning about.

That's where I am at on my personal journey, and as the demands on my time and energy lessen a bit as we work through the rest of the process of buying and moving to this new property, I will get back to writing here about leadership and emotional intelligence. And yet, in an oblique way, perhaps I did just that.

Manifesto: The Introduction

Let’s confront the brutal facts about leadership. Let’s confront them because collectively we are in trouble, because individually we are concerned, and because if we don’t confront the brutal facts there is no one to blame but ourselves.

For decades now, leaders have focused on producing short-term growth without understanding the long-term implications. What are the implications? Institutions are now crumbling. The planet is sick. Markets are unstable. More people and businesses are vying for limited resources. People are scared. And we’ve shifted the burden of our indulgence in clinging to this way of business and of life to our children and future generations.

The cold, hard fact is leaders are producing these results. And what are the results leadership is producing? Results no one wants.

Now, here’s the problem. Each of us believes it is not us that needs to change. Each leader believes it is all the other leaders in all the other organizations and institutions that needs to change. The net? No one thinks they really need to change.

So what do we have? Everyone waiting on everyone else. Let's call a spade a shovel, shall we? That is not leadership. That is a fusion of ignorance and cowardice.

Our ability to change all this is totally dependent on our ability to see ourselves as part of the system that is creating the problem. There is no other way out. The only way out is through the system itself.

If we see the problem as being outside of ourselves—that it’s other leaders producing those undesirable results, that it is all the other institutions that are failing—we will not change. If no one changes, the system will not change. If the system does not change, it will crumble.

Another cold, hard fact? By refusing to see the system within ourselves and by not making the required changes within ourselves we continue to support the system that is now failing us. We are all implicated. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide and no one to blame.

Each individual leader must change. What does that mean, that each of us must change?

•    It means the quality of our perception must change.
•    It means the quality of our attention must change.
•    It means the quality of our actions must change.

To change perception, attention and action requires development in four dimensions:
•    Two dimensions are at the individual level: Self Awareness and Self Discipline.
•    Two dimensions are at the collective level: Group Awareness and Group Discipline.

When those four disciplines are developed, the nature of our perception and attention is heightened.

When the nature of perception and attention is heightened, individuals and groups shift the inner place from which they function. Unforeseen, creative breakthroughs surface.

When that shift happens, people begin to operate from a space of future possibility that they feel wants to emerge.

Becoming capable of facilitating that shift is the essence of leadership today.

This capacity requires that we learn to open our mind, open our heart and open our will.

We cannot open those three portals—mind, heart and will—and remain the same people we were before. We won’t be the same people because:

• to open mind, heart and will requires mastery of our own thoughts and emotions.
• mastering our own thoughts and emotions changes the very nature of our perception.
• to shift perception means to see life in a new way.
• to see life in a new way is to see ourselves in a new way.
• to see ourselves and life in this way involves seeing our purpose, our power and our tremendous responsibility.
• to see all this is sense the future that wants to emerge through us.
• to act on all this develops the capacities we need in order to enable and allow future to emerge through us.

Listen. The problems we face are not insurmountable. Further, dealing effectively with the root problems will unleash something all of humanity (and the planet) is longing for. I don't know about you, but I find that incredibly exciting and inspiring.

You and I are responsible for facilitating this: that is how important we are.

No one can tell us how to become a leader capable of facilitating this shift. No one has mastered it, so there is no master. Therefore, we cannot become a student or an apprentice. There is no time left. We cannot wait for masters to develop. Each of us must begin to simply do it and to develop the mastery through action.

The remainder of this document provides a framework and some resources. I am actively using the framework and the resources as I work to become a leader capable of facilitating the shift within my self, within the groups I work with, within the institutions I am a part of, and within the global dynamic I have the honor to be a part of.

You may or may not find the framework and the resources useful. It is, after all, just one person’s way and one person's experience. But if it helps you develop your own framework, find your own resources, and, more importantly, to become a leader capable of facilitating the shift, then sharing it with you will have accomplished my intention. And that is what will now follow.

Lastly, if you have been waiting for your invitation to join in, it's here. I invite you to join in with the individuals who are now engaging on a most remarkable journey--becoming the type of leader capable of facilitating the process of helping groups of people shift the inner place from which they function, and therefore tapping the innovative and paradigm-breaking solutions we need to some of the most daunting problems humanity has faced.

To accept this invitation is to set out on a journey of personal transformation first and foremost, and, therefore by definition, a spiritual one. It is a journey that transcends religions, dogma, cultures, ideologies, borders and all the other arbitrary boundaries we've used to separate ourselves from others and to justify doing what we do to one another. The stakes are high. The potential is even higher. And you and I are ready.

Now, I will share with those who are interested what I can of my own framework, of the resources I use, and of my experience in using both. I wish you well on your journey.

An Update

I have become increasingly clear about where leadership is at and how emotional intelligence ties in to that. My life is changing right now in pretty significant ways.

I am now working with one client, full-time to support them in a major transformation effort. The net of that is that I am not really teaching leadership any more, but simply doing it.

I am also seeing that as I attempt to do leadership (the old physician heal thyself thing), just how flawed the current model of leadership I use--that we all use or try to adapt from--is.

As that shift is happening, I am becoming more clear that part of my purpose for the next year is to share that journey with others. That impacts this blog.

Lastly, my wife Sara and I have gone under contract to buy 11 acres of land in Oregon's wine country, a two-year dream we have been working on together to begin a new way of life and of living.

All of this is dramatically impacting my perception. I am becoming increasingly attuned to life, to my purpose, to what is important, to where I feel the need to move towards.

This past week I went to see Otto Scharmer--author of Theory U--and participate in his workshop Leading Profound Innovation. That was a remarkable experience, and I highly recommend his work and his workshops. I had some powerful insights there, and flew directly to the one client I am now working with for a year. Wow. Right out of the learning lab and in to the field.

Friday morning, before catching my plane, I had a chance to meet with my friend, Gary, to discuss what emotional intelligence is, how it relates to leadership, and how leadership is related to the problems of the day. That conversation pretty much filled up the large whiteboard in his office.

As all the above has been working on me, in me and through me, my thoughts and feelings about leadership, emotional intelligence and the problems we face today have been gelling. As I flew home from the workshop with Scharmer, from working with my client and from talking with Gary, I knew it was time to start writing my "manifesto".

My manifesto will simply be a document within which I state and share:
1. I think the current form of leadership is dying and why;
2. the framework I am using to become a leader relevant to these remarkable times;
3. the resources I've read and that I use to support each facet of the framework; and
4. an invitation to each reader to accept personal responsibility for the problems we collectively face

I don't know how long it will take me to finish the document. What I do know is that as I work on each part, I will share it with you here. I've written the introduction, which I will now post. I hope that if you find it useful that you will share it with others.

I hope that, over time, a community of leaders will form around using this framework, modifying it, adding to it, and, more importantly, supporting one another actively in making the shift. Whether that will happen, time will tell.

Right now, it is just step by step. My next steps are to embody the content of the manifesto in my own life and work, and to write it as I am moved to do so by shifts in my perspective, insight and experience. That is what you will be seeing here.