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You are Your Leadership Superpower!

The world needs bold leadership more than ever.  Yesterday’s solutions have fueled today’s problems. A devastating pandemic. Economic crises. Widespread cynicism. Inequities. Divisions of all kinds. Are you ready to seize the opportunity to make a real difference?  How are you preparing to do your part?

Acquiring the right stuff is developmental and deliberate. Like good wine, leadership skills and savvy mature over time. Experience helps. Seek it out.  Pair it with the skills of reflective practice[1]. You’ll consolidate your strengths; deepen your understandings of human nature and the world; and avoid the same mistakes. Most importantly, harness the leadership superpower that is only yours for the taking – the creative energies of your true self.

Ocean Vuong, professor, MacArthur genius award-winning poet and essayist, and author of the New York Times best-selling novel “On Earth We Are Briefly Gorgeous”, rings a bell at the beginning of every class.[2]  More accurately, he invites the bell.  The bell, in Vietnamese Buddhist traditions, is always ringing somewhere.  We mute its manifestation – as we do so much of the world – through our tacit, selective screening of the information and experience available to us[3].  

The bell is a prompt for Vuong – a reminder to stop the automatic pilot of life and to call back with honor the first version of ourselves that brought us to this moment.  Long ago and without much clarity of what it would really mean or entail, a more trusting, younger version of each of us took a risk. It made a decision about what we wanted to do with our lives and launched us on the complex journey that has brought us to today. No deep understanding of the sacrifices or steps required. Little appreciation for the full consequences of choices. It stepped out and propelled us forward into the unknown with energy, excitement, and hope.

Western traditions, Vuong reminds, tell us to forget that former self. It was the child that had to be improved upon. Untrained. Immature.  Inexperienced. Unskilled. The long-decomposed acorn ignored in praise of the mighty oak.  

Wrong, says Vuong. That younger self deserves to be appreciated and remembered. It is the pioneer of our present whose “epicentric moment” of choice so long ago brought us here and nowhere else. It is also the direct link to the reservoir of strength, courage, risk-taking, and openness that lies deep within. Honor that self in all its contributions and bravery!  Invite it, advises Vuong, as a fruitful collaborator in our current success.

Few have Vuong’s gift for poetic meditation. But we can all heed the wisdom of his call.  We are our lived experiences. All of them – the successes and failures, moments of pride and shame, the parts of our past that lift us up and those we hide in fear that others might see us as less. Our experiences have forged our unique world view. Understand it! They have given us a set of skills, values, and understandings unlike anyone else. Claim them! Our lived experiences define what we alone can bring to the table – what we must bring to the table – if we are to join effectively with others in search of new paths to lead us from these troubled times.  Our authenticity is our leadership superpower if we are not afraid to use it.   

[1] Donald Schon (1983). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action (first edition). New York: Basic Books.

[2] Ocean Vuong spoke on April 8, 2021 at the Radcliffe Institute.  It is available at     https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/event/2021-ocean-vuong-virtual

[3] Joan V. Gallos (2008). Making Sense of Organizations: Leadership, Frames, and Everyday Theories of the Situation. In Joan V. Gallos (ed.). Business Leadership.  San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 

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Building Ourselves Back Better

In his classic Harvard Business Review article on employee motivation, organizational psychologist Frederick Herzberg (1987) reminds us of a human truth: the absence of dissatisfaction for people does not automatically lead to satisfaction for them – although Herzberg found that managers kept acting as if it did. Human psychology is always more complex than we want to believe. But it is predictable. We know, for example, that not being unhappy does not necessarily lead to happiness (Rubin, 2015).  And in the era of Covid, not being clinically depressed by the trauma, disruption, and loss around us, does not mean we are psychologically healthy and thriving – and there are serious mental health consequences from ignoring that truth.  

A wise colleague, Adam Grant, put a name to the phenomenon and the mind fog, reduced focus, unexplainable exhaustion, and diminished motivation so many of us have felt as we pushed through our pandemic malaise and – if we were lucky – accomplished at least half of what we set out to do in the day.  Grant calls it languishing – the middle child of mental health, the void between depression and flourishing, and a widespread feature of pandemic life.

It wasn’t burnout — we still had energy. It wasn’t depression — we didn’t feel hopeless. We just felt somewhat joyless and aimless. It turns out there’s a name for that: languishing. (Grant, 2021)

The danger, says Grant, is the invisibility and long-term consequences of the slide.  

(W)hen you’re languishing, you might not notice the dulling of delight or the dwindling of drive. You don’t catch yourself slipping slowly into solitude; you’re indifferent to your indifference. When you can’t see your own suffering, you don’t seek help or even do much to help yourself. (Grant, 2021)

Sociologist Corey Keyes (2003) first coined the term, and languishing has always been more common than depression. What’s different now? The pandemic has made it a global phenomenon – and as we face whole communities and countries living through a long siege of it, we’d best attend to its consequences. Languishing predisposes people to future depression or anxiety disorders (Keyes et.al., 2010); and new research (Bassi, et.al., 2020) on pandemic health care workers in Italy found those who languished worse from the trauma they saw were three times more likely than their peers to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

So, what can we do?  A first step is to name it.  See how it fits our current situation or those we love. We can’t combat it if we don’t see and acknowledge it. Reach out to friends and to people whom we’ve lost touch with over the years. We are social beings who are helped by connection. Physically distant does not mean we must remain psychologically disengaged.

Second, find pleasurable activities that completely absorb you and deliberately break the malaise.  Grant talks about searching for flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008) – those deeply pleasurable experiences where time flies from engaging in something that brings joy and satisfaction. Flow pushes out the pain and noise, and reminds us of the power of our agency. No one who knows me would have expected cooking under the daily online tutelage of Jacques Pepin to bring me flow, but it gave me periods of concentration and control of my kitchen when the world was out-of-control – and the pleasure of planning future dinner parties on the other side of the scourge.

Third, make choices that will build back the skills in concentration weaken under the constant angst and uncertainty of Covid life. You can’t flow while multi-tasking and constantly checking Twitter!  Give your mind a break and periods of uninterrupted time. The pandemic has provided us all opportunities to rethink our priorities and to drop the extraneous that once seemed so vital.  

Fourth, the pandemic has brought loss in so many ways.  And loss requires grieving.  We grieve best in community.  Find others with whom you can mourn and from whom you can seek support for accepting life’s changes.   

Fifth, start small. There is pleasure in tiny triumphs if we see them. Grant reminds us that the best path to flow is “just-manageable difficulty”: an activity that stretches skills and tenacity and lets us rediscover the joy and enthusiasm we’ve missed.

Sixth, we know how to build personal resilience. Now is a good time to revisit that tutorial. Languishing is not only in our heads, Grant reminds us, it is in our circumstances. We have miles to go in this pandemic, but vaccine success requires strengthening our resolve for the last lap and working those under-used social and psychological muscles so that we’ll be ready to get back fully into the game.  

I have found in my research that we build resilience in our darkest hours by attending to what I call the Five B’s: boundaries, biology, balance, beauty, and bounce (Gallos and Bolman, 2021). Focus on what you can control and let go of the rest: know your boundaries. Take care of your body with rest, exercise, healthy eating. Balance hard work and pleasure – be kind and extra good to yourself. Embrace the beauty of the arts: music, literature, gardening, and artistry of all kinds are a human sanctuary. Finally, take hope in the human capacity to strengthen in the face of challenge. It is miraculous. We bounce back faster when we learn to reframe – disappointments and struggles are gifts if seen as an impetus for long-overdue change. So are ditching expectations for perfectionism, plenty of laughter, and a good nap!

The pandemic pulled us by necessity into smaller, less joy-filled, less socially-connected lives than those we led before. It also offers us the seeds to build ourselves back better if we are patient, self-aware, and kind to ourselves and to other as we all embrace the possibilities of creating a better world. 

References

Marta Bassi, Luca Negri, Antonella Delle Fave, and Roberto Accardi (2020, November 13).  The relationship between post-traumatic stress and positive mental health symptoms among health workers during COVID-19 pandemic in Lombardy, Italy.  Journal of Affective Disorders, 280: B, pp. 1-6. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165032720329955

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (2008). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics.  

Joan V. Gallos and Lee G. Bolman (2021). Reframing Academic Leadership (second edition).  Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons.

Adam Grant (2021, April 21). There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/well/mind/covid-mental-health-languishing.html

Frederick Herzberg (1987). One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees? Harvard Business Review (September-October). http://www.mcrhrdi.gov.in/91fc/coursematerial/management/14%20One%20More%20Time%20How%20do%20you%20Motivate%20Employees.pdf

Corey L. M. Keyes (2003). Complete mental health: An agenda for the 21st century. In C. L. M. Keyes & J. Haidt (Eds.), Flourishing: Positive psychology and the life well-lived (p. 293–312). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/10594-013

Corey L. M. Keyes, Satvinder S. Dhingra, and Eduardo J. Simoes (2010). Change in Level of Positive Mental Health as a Predictor of Future Risk of Mental Illness.  American Journal of Public Health (December 2010), 100, pp. 2366-2371.  https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2010.192245

Gretchen Rubin (2015). The Happiness Project. New York: Harper Paperbacks.

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Wear Life Loosely and Still Meet the Deadlines

I love Bernie Siegel’s advice to wear life loosely.[1] It’s a way of being that speaks to my soul and releases what feels like my creative best.

I’m happiest when I can wrap the magnificence of life loosely around my shoulders like a comfortable, old shawl – and tackle head-on whatever comes my way. I’m a bear to myself and others when I can’t.

I can’t fully define what it means to wear life loosely, but I sure know how it feels. Calm. Exhilarating. Productive. Joyful.

Wearing life loosely involves at least three things for me:

1. Mindfulness: being in the moment and enjoying it totally, without feeling time or performance pressures

2. Playfulness: a lighthearted approach to whatever I’m doing that includes a sense of appreciation and wonder, a willingness to impishly push boundaries and rules of restraint, and plenty of giggles

3. Feeling responsible for only myself: a release from excessive worries and fears for others and the world – real and imaginary.

Although it may seem paradoxical, I work very hard at staying loose. Living life loosely does not come easily, but everything seems to work better when I can.

I grew up in a hard-working, blue collar family. My father held two – sometimes three – jobs much of his life to make ends meet, and I had my own high-top stool in his basement workshop from as early as I can remember to help him however I could. My mother was disabled and rarely left our home – and I assumed adult caretaking roles at an early age.

I came by responsibility, intensity, anathema to wastefulness, and a predisposition for over-achievement honestly: I know how to take care of people and business and myself and get things done. I’m not complaining – that’s something of which I am proud. But I carry a legacy that must be managed: the inner child only runs free when everything is in order.

Wearing life loosely reminds me that perfect order is never arriving: a life mantra of que sera sera is more realistic.

How do you wear your life? Is its mantle loose enough for you to achieve your goals with ease?

Get looser and laugh about it:  Laughter and humor are keys to the good life. We all need to laugh more. It’s just that simple! Laughter and humor augment our creativity and productivity, and there’s ample evidence they are good medicine, too.

Humor, for example, gives our creativity a perfect workout. It employs many of the creative right brain’s most powerful attributes: understanding situations in context, getting the big picture, combining different elements in new alignments, and adding surprise and novelty.

Researchers have used humor as a measure of managerial effectiveness, emotional intelligence, and innovation – and those who use it well score high on all three.[2] Humor can reduce workplace hostility, relieve tension, communicate difficult messages, and lessen status differences.[3]

Humor cushions the most stressful bumps in life. Mark Twain once said, “Humor is the good natured side of a truth.” He demonstrated this in his famous response to news accounts of his passing away: “The news of my death has been greatly exaggerated.”

Humor encourages us to take ourselves less seriously – and that is especially important in situations involving difficult people or problems.

Above all, humor is a way to illuminate and break frame – to demonstrate that any one take on a situation is limited, arbitrary, and open for deeper investigation.[4]  After Churchill lost the 1945 election to be Prime Minister, his wife Clementine suggested it might be a blessing in disguise. Churchill replied, “That may be, but I wish it were not so well disguised.”

So laugh a little – or a lot. Laughter releases nature’s pain-reducing, relaxation-promoting chemicals called endorphins. You know what tickles your fancy: humor books, corny jokes, movies, improvisation games, comedy tapes, time with witty friends. Engage and enjoy!

Laugh with friends and colleagues. You’ll connect in deeper ways and both benefit from the body’s release of the bonding hormone called oxytocin.[5]

How do you wear your life? Is its mantle loose enough for you? What adjustments do you need to make for a good life? To meet those deadlines with productivity and grace?

[1] Bernie S. Siegel (1998). Prescription for Living. New York: HarperCollins.

[2] Daniel H. Pink (2006). A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. New York: Riverhead Books.

[3] Fabio Sala (2003). “Laughing All the Way to the Bank.” Harvard Business Review (September, 2003).

[4] Lee G. Bolman and Terrence E. Deal (2017). Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice and Leadership (sixth edition). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley.

[5] Amit Sood (2013). The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-free Living. Boston, MA: DaCapo Press, p. 243.

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True Grit, a Successful Life, and Great Accomplishments

clip_image002True grit!  Charles Portis introduced us to it in his classic novel, and John Wayne brought it to life in the film by the same name: an aging, hard-drinking U.S. Marshal is hired by a young girl to bring her father’s killer to justice because that marshal has “true grit.” How does she know? He’s tenacious and undaunted by obstacles, has a longstanding passion for his work, and persists until the job is done. The pursuit of the killer is complex and dangerous, as these things often are – and, yes, the marshal gets his man!

True grit makes for a great story and blockbuster movie. Turns out, it also makes for top performance and a very successful life.

clip_image004Psychologist, researcher, and MacArthur “genius” grant winner, Angela Duckworth, has done ground-breaking work on what leads to high achievement.  Her book, Grit, offers a refreshing look at the issues, and her findings should encourage us all!

The secret to world-class achievement, according to Duckworth, is not talent, genetic make-up, or high IQ. Focused, passionate, and purposeful persistence makes the difference – and that’s a strategy open to anyone.

Our culture is obsessed with genius and natural talents, but you can’t be distracted by that. You need to look behind great work and see its true origin. Hard work!  Effort, according to Duckworth’s research, is twice as valuable as talent or genetics in explaining extraordinary outcomes.

clip_image006Even Einstein attributed his success to it: “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”

Elizabeth Gilbert tackles it in her liberating treatise, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, and calls it her “stubborn gladness” – get up, get going, keep working, keep learning, and do it all with unending curiosity and joy. Focusing on the journey is way more important than the destination!

To be clear, having talent is an asset! Natural talents can start you on a road to discover your deep passions and get you far. Talent also offers a clue to how quickly you will learn and master the basics of a new skill or interest.

But talent alone won’t get you to the top of your game. For that, you need grit.

Duckworth has isolated three important components of grit: passion, persistence, and purpose. Let’s look into all three. Each has subtle features beyond the everyday meaning of the words. You’ll want to understand those and add them to your bag of life and career tricks.

Passion: Passion at the heart of high achievement is multi-dimensional. It is part personal interest – we are always willing to work at things that we enjoy and feel good about. It is also sustained attention, rooted in our experiences, and deepened and developed over time through intentional effort and connections.

This kind of passion is life-orienting. It takes time to find and nurture – and it will ebb and flow. No one feels passionately inspired or clear in direction every day. The trick is to identify an interest that you are willing to invest your amazing energies in – maybe something you keep returning to again and again in your dreams or choices – and get working. And work hard!

clip_image008You may have found your daemon – your life’s calling. If that’s true, strengthen and put it to good use. Maybe you haven’t. That’s OK, too. At least you’ll have learned something new about yourself, the world, and how to build a sound work ethic – all of which will serve you well in your continuing search.

Benjamin Bloom’s edited collection, Developing Talent in Young People, illustrates three stages of skill development and suggests how you can find and nurture your own passion over a lifetime. Each stage outlines different activities and supports needed to progress. Bloom labels the stages as early, middle, and later years.

Duckworth sees each stage informing one of her three vital components of grit: early years focus largely on discovering one’s passion, the middle years on persistence and how to learn, and later years are a time to broaden one’s personal interests with larger social meaning and purpose.

So, let’s begin at the beginning. How are lifelong interests found? How do they transform into life-guiding passions?

Early stage skill development is a playful taste of life and its possibilities – a time to discover and test possible interests and to develop some basic mastery. This developmental work is helped along by supportive others, exposure to new and multiple experiences, and opportunities for autonomous experimentation and fun happenings. At its core, the early stage is a relaxed discovery of self and of areas you might want to more deeply embrace. Individuals progress with the help of encouraging teachers, mentors, and coaches. The activities are enjoyable and individually rewarding. And you’ll get enough experience under your belt to make an informed decision about whether to commit or move on to something else.

A good way to understand this stage is to think about sampling a variety of sports or musical instruments so you can decide which you’d like to spend more time playing.

Persistence: Middle stage is the time for “deliberate practice,” not just more of the same approach used earlier for basic mastery. This is the real deal in skills development – and a stage I wish I had understood more clearly years ago!

There is an old Japanese saying that roughly translates as fall seven, rise eight. “Deliberate practice” embodies that ethic.

You will need tenacity, perseverance, and willpower to sustain your skill improvement in the face of frustration, obstacles, fears, tedium, and setbacks. In fact, if things are going too smoothly, you may not be challenging yourself or practicing deliberately enough. You can expect basic satisfaction and pleasure from improving your skill – even moments of ecstasy and “flow”[1] when something comes together suddenly or in new ways. Those, however, can be few and far between.

“Deliberate practice” is not glamorous: it is roll-up-your-sleeves determination and toughing-it-out through plenty of monotonous repetition for the sake of learning and improvement. Think about the talented Chicago Bulls player Michael Jordan spending hours and hours alone in the gym shooting foul shots!

“Deliberate practice” has a very specific set of rules, and they go something like this:

1. Isolate a skill area that is a current challenge for you.  Pick a small part of the larger whole and make it something foundational for success or progress.  An aspiring concert pianist, for example, might choose a passage in a piece that requires unusual left hand agility and speed; a basketball player, shooting three pointers from the left corner line; a writer, a strong query letter; and so on.

2. Set and clearly define a stretch goal. Perhaps you want to play the piano passage without mistake daily on a first try for a week, or shoot 60% during every basketball practice for a month. 

3. Give the chosen goal your full concentration and work, work, work on it.

4. Figure out where you are falling short and fix that.  Be pleased with what you are doing well; however, more importantly, be proactive and seek feedback from experts about what you are doing wrong. If not, you’ll solidify bad habits and hardwire your brain for current weaknesses.

5. Continue the cycle of repetition with reflection, feedback, and refinement.  Work as long as you need on your one, chosen skill.

6. Identify when you have reached your stretch goal, set another, and begin the “deliberate practice” cycle again on your new chosen flat spot.  

Neuroscience explains why “deliberate practice” works. Humans are born with a vast potential to develop in response to environmental challenges. To over-simplify, it all has to do with the myelin sheaths that insulate your nervous system and allow any part of the body – brain, abs, biceps, etc. – to develop in response to intensive use, deliberate experiences, and repetitive practice. Mother was right: practice makes perfect!

Purpose: Personal interests take on new meaning and purpose when they contribute to the well-being of others and the world in Bloom’s later stage of development. We are hardwired as social beings, and human survival has always depended on the work of many. All of Duckworth’s “gritty” high achievers saw their personal passions mature into something useful to the world which fueled their efforts further.

Music, for example, fosters global understanding and peace to superstar cellist YoYo Ma. Anthropologist Margaret Meade studied South Pacific island culture, yet her autobiography describes her work as bringing new understandings of human behavior and gender to the world. Sister Helen Prejean’s ministry to the poor included becoming a pen pal with a convicted killer, sentenced to die in the electric chair. Her learning from that relationship led to a book, Dead Man Walking, that took her humble death row ministry to the world stage.

And I could go on, but you get the point. There is exhilaration, increased motivation, and sheer beauty in finding the sweet spot where one’s life passion contributes to a larger good!

clip_image009Got grit? You don’t need to be a household name – or even aspire to fame – to do great things that matter to the world or those around you. You just need to know what you really want to do and get on with it – and work with focus, determination, persistence, and passion!

You have everything you need to succeed within you. Don’t let fear or false beliefs about genes or talent or anything else hold you back.

The world is your oyster when you apply your true grit. 

I have no doubt that you have greatness within – and the true grit needed to set it free. Do you? So, what will your contribution be?

[1] M. Csikszentmihalyi (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York: HarperCollins.

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Be Informed: Embracing Compassion Requires Understanding It

You must not hate those who do wrong or harmful things; but with compassion, you must do what you can to stop them.

— Dalai Lama XIV

Compassion heals the compassionate soul and creates a world in which we can come together across our differences. How can we increase our personal capacity for compassion and make it a fundamental virtue in love and work?

Understanding its meaning and purpose is a first step: common misconceptions will get in our way.

Compassion does not mean feeling sorry for people, nor does it ask us to invite the world’s suffering into our living room. Compassion is attunement to others with the hope that through our intentional interactions with them, their suffering lessens.[I]

Compassion at its core is inviting others into our circle of life: offering to understand them and working to be open and generous in spirit even when we disagree with what they do or believe. Ah, there’s the rub: maintaining a kind and open heart is a challenge for the best of us in the face of hurtful or egregious actions. Anger is easier when we feel vulnerable, hurt, or powerless. Anger, however, has its costs.

In our book, Engagement: Transforming Difficult Relationships at Work, Lee Bolman and I assert that compassion is a pillar of successful engagement in the world and required for the kind of interactions that resolve complex social problems. We add the adjective “informed” to underscore that compassion is not denial, collusion, or even forgiveness – horrific or criminal acts may be difficult or even impossible to ever forgive.

Informed compassion is an authentic expression of human connection, a willingness to walk in another’s shoes if only a few steps, and an unyielding belief that all can learn. That learning only happens through willing engagement.

The Dalai Lama, the world’s symbol of compassion, sees compassion as self-serving with added benefits to others and society at large:

Compassion is what makes our lives meaningful. It is the source of all lasting happiness and joy. And it is the foundation of a good heart, the heart of one who acts out of a desire to help others. Through kindness, through affection, through honesty, through truth and justice toward others we ensure our own benefit. This is not a matter for complicated theorizing. It is a matter of common sense. There is no denying that our happiness is inextricable bound up with the happiness of others. There is no denying that if society suffers we ourselves suffer. Nor is there any denying that the more our hearts and minds are afflicted with ill-will, the more miserable we become.[ii]

Neuroscience and the study of human physiology also confirm that compassion for others is good medicine for us. It interrupts cycles of thought that hard-wire our brains for needless pain and anger. It can release destructive emotions and stress that predispose us to a host of health issues – from anxiety, depression, disturbed sleep, and an increased risk of heart attack to adverse physiological changes in our chromosomes that signal cell aging and death.[iii] Medically speaking, embracing compassion is high-level self-care – the best “unselfish selfishness”[iv] around.

Practicing compassion takes, well, practice! Research shows that compassion can be learned. We can train ourselves to be realistic yet non-judgmental and to see what’s happening yet assume the best until consistent data confirms otherwise – and even then, we can train ourselves to respond first by changing how we relate to others so as to try another way to bring out their best.

Practicing compassion may also require learning to say no with grace and yes more often. That may seem counter-intuitive. It is not. No is the word we use to protect ourselves and to stand up for all that matters to us. It can anger others and destroy relationships, so we often say yes when we really want to say no, say no poorly, or say nothing at all. Strategies for delivering a positive no, according to negotiating guru William Ury[v], attend to both clear and authentic communication and relationship maintenance.

The comedy world of improvisation reminds us that yes, and[vi] is a way to validate and build on what others have initiated and a way to explore new alternatives – foundational strengths in problem-solving and teamwork.

As when learning any skilled behavior, we will need instruction in how to if we ever plan to improve our game and a commitment to practice.  The same is true with compassion.

Compassion includes four basic steps: (1) recognize suffering in others, (2) acknowledge it, (3) set an intention to do something, and (4) take an action. Which step is most challenging for you? Start there.

Angela Duckworth’s research in her path-breaking book, Grit, reminds us that skill building comes from “deliberate practice” of the identified component of skilled performance with which we struggle most. Honest feedback from others on how we are doing helps, too.

Dr. Amit Sood outlines nine practices to strengthen compassion skills.[vii] It might be easier for you to begin your study by choosing one from his list:

1. Recognize that difficult behaviors in others may be a call for help. Respond with kindness and assess what difference it makes.

2. Delay snap and negative judgments: try to walk in others’ shoes and acknowledge the urgency driving some important unmet need for them.

3. Remember that no one chooses to suffer or behave ineffectively. Work to resolve the puzzle of what’s happening for the other.

4. Be grateful for your good fortune and all you have – and let your gratitude fuel your problem solving capacities.

5. See yourself in others’ mistakes: the journey they travel today is one you may have traveled before or will in the future.

6. Pay it forward: perform acts of kindness – and if you can, forgiveness; do something good and forget it!

7. Act with humility: act to help, not wow! Act to engage and understand, not control!

8. Recognize the difference between fear and caution: caution is rational, fear shackles.

9. Move toward others: lean-in in simple ways counter to your desire to move away.

Set out to deliberately practice it over a determined period of time, and then assess how well your efforts are improving the quality of life for you and others. Go slow to avoid compassion fatigue[viii]! You must gradually build up your capacities to stand with, but not take in, others’ emotions.

Onward! I have confidence you’ll soar.

[I] Amit Sood (2013).The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-free Living. Boston, MA: DaCapo Press, Chapters 12, 13, 14.

[ii] His Holiness the Dalai Lama (1999). Ethics for the New Millennium. New York: Riverhead Books/Penguin Putnam.

[iii] Amit Sood (2013). Ibid, p. 216

[iv] Amit Sood (2013). Ibid, Chapters 13, 22.

[v] William Ury (2007). The Power of a Positive No: Save the Deal, Save the Relationship, and Still Say NO. New York: Bantam.

[vi] Kelly Leonard and Tom Yorton (2015). Yes, And: Lessons from The Second City. New York: Harper Collins.

[vii] Amit Sood (2013). Ibid, pp. 133-145.

[viii] William A. Kahn (2005). Holding Fast: The Struggle to Create Resilient Caregiving Organizations. New York: Brunner-Routledge.

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Jettison Habits that Are Holding You Back

I just reread an interesting book[1] by social worker and psychotherapist Amy Morin. When I’ve assigned it in my classes, students have found it helpful. It occurred to me that Morin’s work might be just the thing I need for a project in development. Let me share her central messages: you might find them helpful too.

Morin’s main argument goes something like this. Life is tough for everyone, and we need mental strength to tackle the challenges life sends our way. We grow our mental strength by increasing what we know about our capacities and about the habits that hold us back.

We all set goals for ourselves, and they are usually pretty good. We know ourselves and the problems we face: our goals are ways to resolve big concerns that are stressing us out or holding us back.

The best of intentions, however, are too often derailed not by the quality or relevance of the goals we set for ourselves, but rather by the tacit habits of mind that block our ability to do what we need to do to achieve them.

Our bad habits drag us down – and we’re only as good as our worse habits!  We strengthen our personal capacities and resolve, therefore, when we identify what we do that repeatedly gets in our way. Quite simply, we need to identify what we have to stop doing and let ourselves succeed!

Morin identifies 13 dysfunctional habits she has seen in her own life and practice, and notes that people who feel strong and successful in their lives just don’t do these 13 things. Here’s her list of habits that are very good to break:

1. Don’t waste time feeling sorry for yourself. Get on with what must be done to get back on track and moving ahead in the ways you want.

2. Don’t give away your power. We always have more power than we believe we do. Identify your sources of power, and use them!

3. Don’t shy away from change. Change is the only constant in life. Learn to embrace flexibility as a central life skill, and you’ll go far.

4. Don’t waste time on things you can’t change. There is no reason to keep hitting your head against an unmovable wall!

5. Don’t worry about pleasing people. Do what’s right and must be done, and you’ll please yourself. Good people are attracted to that!

6. Don’t fear calculated risks. Everyone has fear of the unknown, and that kind of fear need not hold you back. Make a list of the pros and cons, the costs and benefits of the risk; and invest your energy realistically assessing those.

7. Don’t dwell on the past. The past is the past: you can do nothing about it now!

8. Don’t make the same mistakes, again and again. Mistakes are only disastrous when we learn nothing from them. Failure is the best teacher.

9. Don’t resent others’ success. Invest your energies in creating your own. Success is not a fixed commodity: you and others can all have it.

10. Don’t give up in the face of failure. The best things are worth working and fighting for. Figure out what went wrong; then pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back to working on your goal.

11. Don’t fear time alone. Learn to be your own best friend, and use quiet time to invest in building your skills, knowledge, and resilience. Read! Read! Read!

12. Don’t feel the world owes you anything. Work for what you want, and the satisfaction in  getting it will be magnified by the fact that you have become a stronger and smarter person from your efforts.

13. Don’t expect results immediately. Anything really worth achieving takes time.

We all need to build capacities to stand strong and thrive in the face of difficult situations. How does Morin’s list help you see your strengths and flat sides? Where are you strongest? Which areas and practices need shoring up?

Why not create an action plan for growing the supports and habits you need for your long-term success? Amy Morin has identified common mindsets and behaviors that can hold you back. Which dysfunctional habits are you holding onto, and what is your prioritized plan for jettisoning them – one by one?

[1] Amy Morin (2014). 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do: Take Back Your Power, Embrace Change, Face Your Fears, and Training Your Brain for Happiness and Success. New York: William Morrow.

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Kindness and Gratitude = Health and Happiness

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic have found that regularly practicing a phenomenon they call "loving kindness” can profoundly change your attitude, outlook, and health[1].

Even better, regular practice rewires the brain to be more present and kinder to yourself and others, giving your focus and mood an added daily boost.

Here are three simple practices to get you started.

1. Loving-kindness meditation (LKM)

LKM is a quiet, solo reflective practice that focuses thought on the heart region and encourages warm, tender thoughts about a loved one or cherished others. In one study, one hour of LKM a week led people to report greater positive emotions – love, contentment, joy, satisfaction – during their social exchanges with others.

The researchers also documented health benefits from regular practice of LKM that include:

  • Reduced pain and tension from migraines
  • Reduced symptoms of depression
  • Possibly slowing the aging process. Studies have found that women who practice LKM have longer telomeres, which are like little end-caps on your DNA. Shorter telomeres have been associated with faster aging.

Even small periods of practice can help. One study found a 10-minute session of LKM increased feelings of social connection and positive feelings toward others.

2. Acts of kindness

This one is exactly what you’d imagine. Intentionally set a goal to be kinder to others.

Strategies can be as simple as doing something nice or unexpected for a loved one or even a stranger. Hold a door open for the person behind you. Offer a warm greeting or smile when unexpected. Make a special effort to extend kind words to someone. Send a friend or family member a simple text or email message – or forward an article you think they might enjoy – to tell them you are thinking about them. Take a few extra minutes to help or listen more closely to another.

Regular acts of kindness make you feel good – and beget more kindness.

Neuroscientists have confirmed that thinking or acting kindly toward others activates the part of your brain that makes you feel pleasure. It also releases the hormone oxytocin that increases interpersonal bonding and feelings of enjoyment from social interactions — the higher your oxytocin levels, the kinder and more generous you may become.

3. Gratitude

Everyone has something good in life for which to feel grateful. What’s on your list? If the answer does not come easy, it’s time to start building your list, literally. One way to increase feelings of gratitude is to write them down in a hand-written or virtual journal.

Researchers have found that feeling thankful for life’s little blessings can improve sleep, diminish fatigue, increase confidence, and even lessen depression.

And keeping some form of a gratitude journal — writing down happy moments, beautiful observations, or people or things you’re grateful for in your life — has been found to improve biological markers of heart health.

Like any other skill set, expressing kindness and gratitude gets easier with practice – and the benefits multiply. Start slow and simple with activities such as

  • Spend a few minutes each day thinking positive thoughts about the important people in your life.
  • Reflect on your week and write down a few things you’re most grateful for. Why not keep some slips of paper and a gratitude jar on your bedside table: end your day by writing down one special something from your day and putting it into the jar. You’ll drift off to sleep with positive feelings about a special someone or something – and have a wealth of reminders for those times when you feel down or alone.
  • Set aside 10 minutes to sit quietly, meditate, or simply think warm tender feelings about a loved one  that comes straight from your heart.

The world – and your relationships – will be better for your efforts. And you just might become a happier and healthier you.

[1] HOUSECALL, Vol. 19, Issue 24, March 22, 2018. Accessed online March 22, 2018 at https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/how-sharing-kindness-can-make-you-healthier-happier/art-20390060/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=housecall

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Picasso, Windex, and Creative Leadership

Yesterday morning I washed windows. A cold winter led to a decision for inside storms on interior windows that border an unheated porch. Washing the windows wasn’t a big deal, but a job I put off. Then, an email announced the upcoming installation and a reminder that clean inside windows mean no need to remove the new storms anytime soon. I grudgingly left my desk, and got the Windex and paper towels.

Pablo Picasso reminds us it takes a long time to become young. I think I just learned something important about what he meant.

As I was spraying the Windex, I suddenly remembered how, as a young child, I begged my mother to let me wash the glass front door, and I turned it into a host of games.

I was a friend of Elroy on the “Jetsons,” and the Windex was my ray gun. I was Dale Evans, working with Roy Rogers to protect the Double R Bar Ranch from bandits. I was a museum employee, polishing the glass on a great work of art – and it needed to be spotless. I was a scientist doing important experiments: how long before the paper towel became too wet to clean without smudges? How much Windex was required to do the job without being wasteful? We had the cleanest front door in town! My mother was happy. And I had a blast.

So, yesterday I enjoyed the childhood recollections and spritzed away the morning with a smile. I played scientist again, and developed my own data-based tricks to maximize speed and quality – windows warmed by the sun needed a different wiping pace than the cold ones; cold windows needed drier paper towels than the warm; the edges of the panes needed special care and thorough drying, while clean damp centers seemed to take care of themselves. I complimented my inner child on her experimental design and mindfulness– and kept happily spritzing.

During rests, I took in the views. I watched a young mother stop and carefully lift her child from a carriage to look at an evergreen bough blowing in the wind. I saw how well the new robotic arm on our town’s garbage truck emptied the neighborhood’s heavy cans – saving, I’m sure, the precious backs of many a sanitation worker. I enjoyed two spirited Golden doodles romping down and around the sidewalk, repeatedly tangling their leashes to their walker’s dismay.

Then I suddenly found myself thinking in new ways about a grant application I was writing: phrases and data to include started to come freely. The idea for this blog post emerged, as did a playful list of leadership wisdom – useful ditties such as,

  • It’s more efficient to clean things up from the top down: dirty drips make a mess for the bottom and lead to a lot of wasted time and effort.
  • Sometime just in time is just fine.
  • Figuring out what’s on your side of the glass and what’s on the other is critical: if it ain’t your dirt to clean, you can polish to your heart’s content to no avail.

Play is the well-spring of joy and creativity for children and adults. It activates different parts of the brain, relaxes our defenses, and frees us to think outside current cognitive constraints.

There is plenty of research on the links among play, creativity, successful entrepreneurship, and the development of 21st century organizational skills. More than forty years ago, organizational guru Jim March  – in an extension of his work on decision making with Nobel Laureate Herb Simon — advocated for the vital role of playfulness in his landmark book with Johan Olsen, Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations.[1]  Play, according to March, is an antidote to the natural limits in how humans think: we may think we are  looking at all our options, but we only see those that fit within our mental models and beliefs about what the world is and how it works.

Escape is possible, continued March, if we let ourselves play — deliberately embrace “the power of sensible foolishness” in order to open our minds to new ways of thinking and being.

Play gets a negative rap in the adult world – “grow up,” “stop being such a child,” “quit playing around,” and the like.  Play, however, is a critical leadership skill when viewed as an essential complement, not an enemy, of rational thinking – a kind of “Mardi Gras of reason” that affords our minds a planned occasion for creative experimentation, relaxed reflection, free and unrestricted associations, and openness to innovative solutions just waiting to be found. 

How are you going to productively play today?  What project could use some innovative thinking?  What will enable you to free your creative mind?

[1] March, J. G. (1976). “The Technology of Foolishness” in March, J. G. and J. Olsen (ed.). Ambiguity and Choice in Organizations. Bergen, Norway: Universitetsforlaget.

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General

How Great Leaders Think: Gray and Free

It’s not that I’m so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.[i]

― Albert Einstein

One of the most useful and innovative leadership skills I know is the ability to think gray and free. The idea comes from the late Steven Sample, engineer, professor, and successful, long-term president at the University of Southern California who transformed the institution during his nineteen years in office.

I love the process of thinking gray and free – it’s not easy but it works, is supported by neuroscience, can be taught, and stretches everyone’s creative potential. And it’s fun! Can’t get much better than that!

The rationale for learning to think gray and free goes something like this:

Problems are problems because what has usually worked in other situations does not work with what you now face. Those are the times you need to harness your creative best for breakthroughs in your thinking so you can identify fresh options. You need ways to break out of your cognitive ruts, but human nature doesn’t make that easy!

Under stress and in the face of major challenges, it is easy and almost automatic to rush to judgment in dealing with new information or situations by labeling them good or bad, right or wrong, true or false. We want fast and decisive action to relieve our stress. But snap judgments in difficult times can put you on a dead-end road. Thinking that you are right, you keep doing what you’ve always done: the problem continues, frustration mounts, stress levels rise, and you double down on what you’ve always done. You can see where all that will land you!

Not anymore! Here’s where thinking gray and free[ii] comes into the picture.

When asked, leaders and managers often say that they try to “consider all the options” before reaching a difficult decision. Steven Sample disagrees. They may consider all their options, but do so within the constraints of their current thinking patterns and approaches. Learning to think gray and free is “an unnatural act” that forces you to remain unresolved and open to fresh solutions beyond your comfort as a way to tap into unused cognitive pathways. That’s what can lead to your greatest insights, free you from the bounds of convention, and allow your natural creativity and intellectual independence to shine. As you move beyond the temptation to plow ahead and fix things quickly, you will also see more clearly what matters – and doesn’t.

Sample’s favorite way to stimulate that kind of thinking is to contemplate problems from absolutely outrageous positions and in impossible ways. Literally!  The process of arriving at his highly successful patent design for a dishwasher control reads like something from a Charlie Chapin movie: Sample crawled on the ground to contemplate the controls from different angles and forced himself to imagine the dishwasher was being controlled by a French horn, sofa, ladybug, electrons, hay bale, and more. This thinking was so difficult that he could only sustain it for about ten minutes at a time. But after a few of these thinking sessions, he suddenly could see in his mind’s eye the complete circuit design – and a way to do it he had never contemplated before.

Innovative ideas come when you challenge your assumptions and allow yourself to revel in blue-sky moments when anything is possible.

Steven Sample used various techniques to stretch his capacities to think gray and free. Two favorites are described below[iii]. Try one!

Resist the temptation for binary thinking: Force yourself to read an article, listen to a news report, or engage in a conversation with another and suspend all judgments: don’t believe or disbelieve, or classify anything as right or wrong. Listen and keep telling yourself, “that’s really interesting.” If you find you can’t, then write down your first impression about the matter, and force yourself to not think about it until a later time (or ever again). Training your mind to “bend over backwards by thinking gray with respect to a few everyday matters” is an excellent way to overcome your natural inclinations to speed judge and to think right-wrong/yes-no.

Contemplate the outrageous together: Bring a group of people together who have widely varying perspectives and a common goal. Ask each individual to propose an “off-the-wall idea” for achieving the goal, with the proviso that every other person in the group must respond with at least two reasons why the idea will work. There is benefit in forcing yourself to learn to think positively and deeply about an idea you’d rather quickly reject.

Great leaders think is broad, deep, and creative ways.  How can you expand your capacities to do the same?  

[i] http://amorebeautifulquestion.com/einstein-questioning/#jp-carousel-4256

[ii] Steven B. Sample (2008). “Thinking Gray and Free.” In Gallos, J. V. (Ed.) Business Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

[iii] The ideas in this blog are adapted from the skills tutorial appearing in Part II of Lee G. Bolman and Joan V. Gallos (2016). Engagement: Transforming Difficult Relationships at Work. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

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Inquiry: The Art and Benefits of Asking Good Questions

Always the beautiful answer/Who asks a more beautiful question.[i]

― e. e. cummings

Inquiry is a vastly under-appreciated skill, yet foundational for learning, problem solving, and relationship building. Good questions change lives and the course of history, and the resolution of big thorny problems requires them. Few are taught in their professional training to ask good questions. Journalists may be the rare exception.[ii]

Inquiry seeks to discover or learn what others think, know, want, or feel.

How can you foster better exchanges and relationships with important people in your life using inquiry? Fine-tune your inquiry skills to strengthen your capacity to lead?

The basic inquiry skill is knowing how to ask good questions. Good questions typically begin with words like how, why, or what. They go beyond requests for a yes or a no response. Instead they encourage people to think and talk: to provide information, describe and unpack their thinking, explore ideas, share their perspective, or consider new possibilities.

Good inquiry is necessary for testing ideas, seeking feedback, learning from others, and accurate situational diagnoses.

Tightly connected to good inquiry is active and attentive listening. The benefits of inquiry are lost if others see it as manipulative technique and not a route to your deeper understanding.

Edgar Schein introduces the concept of “humble inquiry,”[iii] defined as the fine art of asking others questions based on your curiosity and sincere interest in them. The purpose is to draw others out and into a closer and more trusting relationship. Schein sees humble inquiry as an investment of your time and attention to build foundations for effective teamwork – at work or home.

Inquiry is a habit of the mind that does not come easy to many, especially in a “tell” world that values experts who “already know.” Business organizations and “let’s get on with it” cultures often view questions as “inefficient” and the antithesis of action, task completion, and forward momentum, according to Clayton Christensen,[iv] an advocate of good questions as a way to foster disruptive innovation.

The culture of the charismatic extrovert – someone who speaks out and speaks up with clarity and drive – still dominates everyday beliefs about effective leadership; and more than a century after Dale Carnegie launched his first public speaking course at a New York City YMCA, his best-selling book How to Win Friends and Influence People is still a staple on airport bookshelves and business best-seller lists[v].

So how can you enhance your inquiry skills?

There are two places to start: (1) increase your use of questions, and (2) ask better questions. Where do you stand on each?

In our book, Engagement: Transforming Difficult Relationships at Work, Lee Bolman and I provide a tutorial on inquiry. You may want to try these recommendations from it:

Compare your advocacy and inquiry counts: Over the course of the next week, be mindful in your conversations with others about the balance between your advocacy (telling people something) and your inquiry (asking them a real question). Take time after a number of selected conversations to think about: How many questions did you ask the other vs. how many statements did you make? How often were questions real requests for information vs. rhetorical devices and advocacy in disguise? Tracking your ratio of advocacy and inquiry allows you to work on changing the balance.

Descriptive questions: Take as a goal for a day or a time period to avoid asking questions that evoke a yes or no answer. Substitute instead questions that begin with how, why, or what. How easy is that for you? How does that change the tenor of your conversations? Why do you think that is? What have you learned about others as a result?

Successful leadership is steeped in the search for information and learning – about others, the situation, and the best steps forward. How can improving your inquiry improve the impact of your efforts?

[i] e. e. cummings. Introduction to New Poems. Accessed December 12, 2015 at http://poems.writers-network.com/pdf/article-662.pdf

[ii] Warren Berger (2014). A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas. New York: Bloomsbury.

[iii] Edgar Schein (2013). Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

[iv] Clayton M. Christensen (2011). The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business. New York: Harper Business.

[v] Susan Cain (2013). Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking. New York: Broadway Books.