Tag: Lee Bolman

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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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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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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.

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Feed the Soul with Small Surprises: Sunrise on Corey Hill

I woke earlier than I wanted, and rolled over hoping for another few hours of sleep. It wasn’t going to happen, and I began to think about a thorny project that needed something new for forward movement. I got out of bed feeling tired, stuck, and annoyed.

I went to sleep the night before thinking about the issue, and asked my unconscious to work on fresh insights while I slept. That often works. Not today – and recognition of it was probably what woke me so completely in the early morning dark. I headed downstairs – and with an attitude – to feed the dog.

Instead, at the base of the stairs I impulsively grabbed boots, a coat long enough to cover my pajamas, and car keys. I leashed up the now-confused and still-sleepy old dog and headed to Corey Hill – the highest spot in the neighborhood – to watch the sun rise.

I expected solitude and a beautiful place to feel sorry for my tired and not-currently creative self. And then the surprises began.

I arrived at the small, hillside park in the urban core to find more than fifty runners in brightly-colored gear, depositing backpacks on the summit (probably containing dress clothes for subsequent jogs to work or school) and warmly greeting each other on a frigid winter morning. A few brought dogs and were letting them socialize in the off-leash park at the base of the hill. People were talking, laughing, digging out warmer hats or gloves for themselves or others, and stretching together. All-in-all it was a marvelous pre-dawn party.

As the sky turned a pinkish grey, the runners self-organized and small groups began to run together down the east side of the hill into the intensifying sunrise.

I walked to the center of the park and enjoyed the runners taking off into the emerging morning colors, the crescent moon still bright in the clear dawn sky, the gorgeous sun rising behind the tall Boston buildings in the distance, and the widening glow of pink that grew out of the sun sphere and surprisingly spread out and across the entire horizon surrounding me as if in a 360 degree hot pink embrace.

It was a big, spectacular sunrise. And it was made even more beautiful by happenings on the ground and reminders that we are never alone even in our darkest hours.

The world may seem cold, but it is always filled with warm communities of shared interest, the energy of accomplishment, new hills to navigate, the vitality of youth – many were runners in their 20’s and 30’s, love and friendship, and the ability of the human spirit to conquer the cold and dark with a smile, a buddy, and a stride forward. We just have to find what we need – and if we let ourselves, we may even find it by happenstance.

I found unexpected beauty on Corey Hill – but I was cold. I forgot gloves. So, I drove slowly down the hill, as the runners were heading back up, and stopped at a coffee shop. Alone in the shop with the barista, we talked. He told me about walking to work in the dark and how bright the stars and moon were – the clear skies probably why it was so darn cold. He had just moved into the neighborhood, as have I, from my former neighborhood – and we spoke about that. I told him about Corey Park, and he responded: “Oh, I’m stuck here in the mornings. Tell me all about the sunrise there.” And over my cappuccino with cinnamon and ricotta cheese cake, I passed along descriptions of the sunrise, the runners and dogs, and small surprises – and we were both fueled in new ways to better embrace our days.

Leadership is demanding business, and successful leaders have strategies to sustain vitality and resolve. They feed body and soul.

In a book that I co-authored[i], we propose strategies to nourish and strengthen leaders. One set of recommendations is to give deliberate attention to five key areas – we call them the 5 B’s:

1. Managing boundaries between self and others, between your life and your work

2. Attending to your body in ways that maintain basic good health

3. Bringing balance among work, friends and family, and leisure

4. Finding activities that feed the soul, like the beauty and recuperative power of the arts and nature

5. Increasing the odds that you’ll bounce back from stress and challenge through resilience training.

How can you bring more of the 5 B’s into your life? What greatness could you accomplish with a little extra clarity, strength, vigor, and bounce?

[i] Lee G. Bolman and Joan V. Gallos (2011). Reframing Academic Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley, Chapters 8-13.

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Depression and Executive Overload: We’re In Over Our Heads So We Better Learn to Cope Better

Andrew Weil has been making the media rounds with his new best seller, Spontaneous Happiness. His exploration of depression as a rising global phenomenon caught my attention.

Weil, an M.D. with an interest in wellness, points to the growing body of research on links between rising global wealth – and the adoption of the modern Western lifestyle (sedentary, solitary, stimulus-overloaded, indoors, technology-filled) and diet (processed and engineered) that goes with it – and higher global rates of depression.

I look at Leslie Chang’s award-winning Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China and see a case study of what he means (and one way to understand China’s distinction in having the highest female suicide rate in the world).

Closer to home, 1 in 10 people in the U.S. today are on depression medication. This includes millions of children. The World Health Organization projects by 2030, more people world-wide will be treated for depression than any other health condition.

Plain and simple, countries with the least developed lifestyles have the lowest rates of depression. “There seems to be something about modern life that creates fertile soil for depression,” says Martin Seligman, father of the field of positive psychology (and author of Flourish, discussed in an earlier post).[1]

Concludes Weil: our “ancient brains” just aren’t equipped for 21st century life (and we’d better start doing something to keep them and the bodies that fuel them in good working order).  Amen. 

So are you going to do anything different in your life for knowing this?  I ask because Weil’s message isn’t really new.

Fourteen years ago, Harvard psychologist Robert Kegan warned us[2] that modern living is just too darn hard – that over an increasing portion of our lives, there’s a mismatch between the complexity of what we need to know and understand to function productively and the human capacity to grasp it all. The result: increasing stress and a struggle to develop more sophisticated ways of thinking and learning to respond.  The flattening of the world has only magnified that.

Seven years later, psychiatrist Edward M. Hallowell offered a different slant in Harvard Business Review in “Overloaded Circuits: Why Smart People Underperform” – an article that remains one of the most read HBR reprints today. Hallowell spoke of an increasing number of patients reporting symptoms similar to those of attention deficit disorder without having that disorder. Their symptoms were merely the brain’s natural response to stress, stimulus, and overload: impatience, as well as diminished capacities for problem-solving, resilience, focus, memory, and creativity. Talented executives became “frenzied underachievers.” 

We can all do better than that – and have to, given today’s fast-paced world. Suggestions for how from my most recent book, Reframing Academic Leadership.[3]

Learning to Cope in a World on Over-drive

Healthy leaders care for themselves and build vitality by attending to five key areas: boundaries, biology, balance, beauty, and bounce.

Boundaries: Got to have ’em, got to maintain ’em. Human are programmed to take in the emotions of others. That’s why we feel better around positive, high energy people. Negative emotions hamper brain functioning. Don’t dwell on them. Hallowell suggests interacting with folks you like every 4 to 6 hours, especially during stressful periods, to promote positive feelings. 

Biology: Take better care of your body, and it will take better care of your brain. Increase aerobic exercise, eat better (more fruits, vegetables, lean proteins; less sugar, white flour, processed foods), stay hydrated, limit caffeine and alcohol, improve sleep patterns. The evidence for these is overwhelming, and neuroscience confirms that healthy brains develop new circuitry to compensate for the normal loss with aging.

Balance:  Balance flows from willingness to attend to the diverse needs of mind, body, and soul. Try mindfulness to train the brain to focus amid distraction. Stress is eased with learned relaxation. Negativity is countered by conscious focus on positive sentiments (empowerment, love, care, appreciation, forgiveness, compassion). Deal with fears of overload by remembering you can handle it – and you will. Weil suggests cultivating times of silence and limiting email, television, disturbing noise, and internet use.

Beauty: Find it for yourself: it feeds the soul. Nature and the arts are obvious choices. “Without art, the crudeness of reality would make the world unbearable,” said playwright George Bernard Shaw. Weil touts the added physical benefits of time spent outside, including Vitamin D (which is vital for brain health).

Bounce: Resilience comes from recognizing that we always have choice in interpreting and responding to events, keeping things in perspective, trusting one’s instincts, practicing new behaviors and responses, and reflecting on the consequences. It is helped by learning to “wear life loosely” and by reaching out to others for social connections. Weil reminds us that social interactions are a powerful safeguard of emotional well-being. 

[1] Andrew Weil (2011). “Don’t Let Chaos Get You Down.” Newsweek. Double Issue (November 7 and 14), pp. 9-10.

[2] Robert Kegan (1994). In Over Our Heads: The Mental Demands of Modern Life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[3] Based on materials in Lee G. Bolman and Joan V. Gallos (2011). Reframing Academic Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, Chapter 12.

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PR and Social Media Tips from the Expert

It’s a slippery slop for bloggers to miss a regular posting schedule – but life gets busy. This is one of those times. 

The good news: Reframing Academic Leadership (my latest book with Lee Bolman) has taken off globally like wildfire. I post a picture from last night’s book signing to show I’m at least writing my name!

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To support your learning, I share a resource from a talented social media/PR expert I met last week, Justin Goldsborough. Justin does a great blog, so I’m suggesting you read something by him this week. http://justincaseyouwerewondering.com/  And bookmark his sight: it’s a terrific, on-going resource. Thanks, Justin, for your wisdom and talent.

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Leading Up: Managing the Bosses

Leadership is often equated to managing those who report to you – or influencing others predisposed to follow because of your title or position. But savvy leaders understand that leading up is as important as anything else they do. Their capacity to make a difference depends on support and mandates from those above.

Wise leaders, therefore, attend carefully to relationships with more powerful players, pursuing goals of partnership, open communication, and credibility. How well developed are your skills and strategies in doing that?  Here are five guidelines[1] to get you started:

1. Look within. What’s your motivation? Set out to wow folks at the top or push your own agenda and you’re on the road to disaster. Leading up is all about partnerships and reciprocity: you deliver for your boss, and your boss is likely to do the same for you.

2. Build credibility. It has two, equally important components: expertise and trustworthiness. You can have solid business acumen, but if people don’t believe in you, they’ll ignore your message. Credibility comes from consistently demonstrating integrity and reliability in achieving or exceeding your goals.

3. Speak up. A common reaction to authority is overdependence – responding to those above you in a fearful or overly-compliant manner. Bosses are not infallible or well served by anyone who hesitates to tell the truth about potential fallout from their judgments and decisions. An important test of leadership capacity is the willingness to speak truth to power. Are you willing and able to do that?

4. Give solutions, not problems. Make your boss’s job easier and use her time judiciously. Arrive with well-researched solutions. When you say "Here’s what I see, what I’ve done, and what I’ve learned. Here’s my plan. What do you think?", you keep the boss in the loop without putting more problems on her plate.

5. Avoid surprises. Never let your boss be blindsided!  Partnerships take time to develop, but they can unravel quickly. And it goes without saying, but is important enough that it can never be said too often: all your choices should be clear, clean, and ethical.

[1] See Lee G. Bolman and Joan V. Gallos (2011). Reframing Academic Leadership (Chapter 11). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass for more details and additional suggestions.

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The Leadership Fallacy: You See What I See

Leaders need to understand their world in order to influence it.  This requires sharp sense-making skills.  Sense-making on the surface seems like a cinch: you notice something, decide what to make of it, and determine what to do about it. Humans are pretty fast at this, and therein lies the problem. We tend to overlook four limiting features of the process.

1. Sense-making is always incomplete. Humans can attend to only a small portion of the information and experiences available to them. Our non-conscious is always hard at work attending to some data and screening out others. We rarely reflect on what and how much we ignore.

Stop reading for a minute and think about what’s happening around you. Are there sounds? A humming printer? Buzzing ceiling lights? Colleagues bustling in the background? What about movements? People passing your door? Traffic visible out your window?  How about light? Objects in your periphery vision? What’s the comfort level of your chair? The feel of your hands resting on your desk/lap/keyboard? Is the room hot or cold? You get the point. We always know more than we know we do. 

2. Sense-making is very personal. Individuals’ values, education, past experience, cognitive capacities, physical abilities, and developmental limitations influence what they see. But since sense-making occurs so quickly and tacitly, the everyday explanations leaders construct feel so obvious and real to them that they seem more like Truth and the way the world really is than the individual creations and interpretations that they are.

This can blind leaders to available alternatives, gaps in their thinking, and biases. It also leaves them feeling little incentive to question their interpretations.

3. Sense-making is interpretive. When thrown into life’s ongoing stream of experiences, people create explanations of what things mean – and often assume that others either see things the same way or, if they don’t, they are wrong. 

4. Sense-making is action-oriented. People’s personal interpretations contain implicit prescriptions for how they and others should respond.

 

If  you conclude, for example, that your unit’s budget problems result from over-spending, you’ll cut expenses. If you see the problem as inadequate allocations, you’ll lobby for more. If you bemoan inattention to revenue generation, you’ll develop new programs, services, or products.  If it’s embezzlement, you’ll call the police. 

You can see the ease and the potential complications in all this for leaders.  They’re off and running before they’re even sure what’s most important and where they should really be heading.  And they’re rarely aware that this is what they are doing.  For more, check out Reframing Academic Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2011), Chapter 2: Sense-making and the Power of Reframing.

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General

Resilience 101: How to Build it

If resilience is an essential leadership skill, as I discussed in an earlier post, how do we build our capacity for it?  As someone for whom resilience doesn’t come naturally, I’ve thought deeply about the question.  Five suggestions from my musings:   

Start with what we know we can control or change – ourselves. It is easy in frustrating situations to hope that others will change. We know from research that’s a common, first response for all of us.  But we have the most influence on the change process when we focus on changing ourselves, our responses, our ways of framing a situation. This is not to say that we should cocoon, pull back, and not express our preferences or work to influence challenging or ineffective situations for the better.  It is more a question of how, when, and why we do that intervention work – and a reminder that we stand a better chance of influencing others when we know what we want and when we are trying patiently and openly to make things work.

Embrace our control over our full range of choices and options.  It’s easy to feel stuck – as if there’s only one way out of a sticky situation or only one way to understand it.  It’s harder to think of options and alternatives.  Resilience comes from being a stronger and broad thinker – no one trick pony – and from having the confidence in knowing that we can, even under the most stressful of conditions.

How do we develop those cognitive capacities? Practice them. Be playful. Take a minute now and then to ask simple questions like, so what else could I do now? What other options do I have? How else could I respond? What else is possible? What are five different reasons to explain why someone is now acting as he or she does? Once we get into the hang of it, these kinds of experience-broadening questions become second nature.  They enable us to see a bigger, richer, and brighter world.

Learn to reframe and do it often. Reframing is the process of standing back and deliberately looking at a situation from multiple angles and perspectives before jumping to the conclusion that you know what’s really happening (for you and for others).  Reframing is an especially important skills when we feel high stress, anger, anxiety, or other deep emotions.  That’s when we regress to our most primitive thinking and knee-jerk responses. 

If I tell myself I’m stuck, I am. If I say that I’m lost or overwhelmed, I will be. When I believe there is an opportunity, it’s always there.

When driven blindly by feelings, we react. It may feel good to settle, vent, or blame, but for what purpose?  Professionals have confidence that they know how to respond. The difference between reacting and responding is huge.  It’s the stuff upon which great careers are made.  What are the stories that you tell yourself in the face of frustrating situations?  Try an alternative framing, and you’ll see your mood lighten and your options grow.   

Need a primer to enhance your reframing skills? Try Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership by Lee Bolman and Terry Deal. Expanding the frameworks that you bring to make sense of social settings gives you a leg up in perfecting your reframing skills.      

Accept the reality that not everything is equally important. This sounds trite and obvious, but think about how often you have gotten yourself into a major stew over the small stuff.  We all do it — and more often than we like to admit.

Despite what many of us have learned from well-meaning teachers and sports coaches, not everything is worth doing well – and some things are not worth doing at all.

Sure there are consequences to our choices. Choose not to do something, and you’ve missed an opportunity. This is where knowing yourself comes in.

What’s really important to you? Where do you not want to miss out or not make a mistake? What are the issues or areas in your life where you can cut yourself some slack? Let go? Be less perfect?  Punt without shirking your responsibility to others?  

That’s the essence of resilience and the key to managing work-life balance and overload – and you hold the key to all that.  As you climb the hierarchy with increased responsibility over your career, you will never be able to do everything – and you’ll never be able to do all that you do perfectly.  How can you learn to accept that in yourself?  How can you use your supports and resources to share the load? Build networks of trust? Delegate? That’s not easy for people with high expectations  and needs for control, but it’s essential.            

Laugh.  A good sense of humor is mandatory for a long life and a strong career – and that means laughing at yourself, your mistakes, your flat spots, and your foibles. It’ll help keep things in perspective – and you’ll have a better time.