Tag: On Corporate Life and Leadership

It’s hard to get anyone to truly hear your story until it’s personal.  We have to make the story personal.

For the story to have impact, it has to be personal.  Personal stories are the best stories for transferring ideas from one person to another. 

Listening to someone else’s personal story only gets me so far.  The rest of the distance is covered by me.  I have to make the story MY story.  That is what it means to make the story personal.

If you write on the first few pages of the notebook and hand me a largely empty notebook, I will read what you wrote.  If it is honest and true, I will “get” your story.  Then, I will write my story next to yours.

I will fill up the notebook.

I will fill up two more.

Then I will pass the notebook along to somebody else.  If I have been honest and true, they will “get” our story.  Then, they will write their story.  Right next to ours.

This is the process of transferring ideas from one person to another.

This is the process of making each person a part of the story.

However, in order for me to pass the notebook along to the next person, you had to pass it along to me.  You had to relinquish control of the notebook and maybe even the pen.  You had to entrust it into my hands.  You had to hope that what you set down as the start of the story gave me enough to write my part of the story in a way that aligned with your original vision.

Most importantly, you had to give your vision over to me. 

It’s not yours any more.  That has to be OK. 

You have to trust your writing.

You have to trust my writing.

You have to trust the next person’s writing.

That is how you make the story personal.

If you aren’t ready to do that, then don’t pretend you are.  And don’t expect anyone else to be.

Humans are remarkably quick at coming up with hypotheses about how something works or how someone is going to react to something or how a series of events is going to unfold. That doesn’t always mean we are right, of course, but we are pretty good with generating our own ideas for how stuff happens. So, my hypothesis coming into this new gig 3600 miles away from old gig was pretty much established months ago when all this was just a fantasy in my head.

My basic thesis? That I can become better at my craft by learning how to do what I did over there over here, and, in the process, fill the gaps in my performance. It’s all predicated by one simple assumption: that people are people. I “get” people. Piece of cake.

Well, not really. I might have oversimplified a bit. Still, I am coming into this with a plan, and my plan is to take the things that I did well over there and put them into practice here. We’ll call it my “methodology,” although I don’t have my act together in a coherent enough manner to really call it a methodology. Well, at least not yet. That’s one of the reasons I am here.

I don’t assume that everything I’ve relied on before will be reliable here and now, but that wouldn’t have necessarily been true anyway even if I’d just taken a new job a few miles down the road. Instead, I am simply choosing to embrace what has worked for me in the past and apply that here. Then, I will tweak. Inevitably, some things will be different, but my experience in life thus far has taught me that my instincts are good and that the most important step, the first step, is to make the human connection.

And that is all this post is about: the cornerstone of any bridge that you could ever hope to build, at home or 3600 miles away, is a connection between you and the human being on the other side of the divide.

Compromise can be a vicious thing. When I say “compromise,” I mean the word in the sense of the third definition I found at www.thefreedictionary.com/compromise: a concession to something detrimental (causing damage or harm) or pejorative (tending to make or become worse).

Sometimes, compromise is simply about concessions. In a professional setting, we are often called upon to make concessions in an effort to strike a balance between the needs and desires of various parties involved in an interaction, be it positive or negative. Compromise doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Sure, it might mean you can’t have everything you wanted, but…you know…most of the time you can live with giving something up here and there.

But there are times when compromise is all about the detrimental and pejorative stuff. Life takes on a bitter flavor when we find ourselves in situations where the kind of compromise we are making strikes at the heart of what we believe to be right and true. It’s even worse when we accept the compromise out of a desire to not rock the boat, out of a desire to reach a specific goal that would otherwise be endangered without the compromise. Being in that position doesn’t feel good.

Don’t ask someone else to compromise more than you yourself are willing to sacrifice. It’s easy to pretend that we’re giving up as much as the other person to convince them that the compromise is fair, but…you still have to look at yourself in the mirror afterwards, you know? You can’t lie to yourself. I mean, you can try. It just catches up with you. You may not feel it immediately, but the little lies add up. They take their toll. Some day, you’ll regret it.

Leadership is as much art as science. I’ve said this before, and I continue to maintain that it’s true. I think one key component of the art of leadership is the practice of setting direction. My experience is that its also a lost component for the most part.

It’s easy to manage people. Having numbers, figures and metrics, makes it even easier. Buzz words and platitudes make it easier still. You can pretty much fake your way through the deal and never get caught. This is why I say the managing part is easy.

Leading is harder. Leading is the art piece of the equation. Fewer figures. Tougher metrics. You still have plenty of jargon to use, but it’s almost impossible to “fake it,” to fake real leadership.

Leadership takes common sense. It takes a foundation based in common sense and the guts to act on that common sense. It’s at this point where I see things going South pretty quickly.

It takes courage and common sense to stand up and set a direction for others to follow. It takes confidence to actually ask others to trust you and follow. My experience has been that this kind of courage is in short supply. You put a lot on the line when you make the appeal to potential followers to trust you and run with your ideas. Too much is put on the line, as a matter of fact. So much so that those who should be leaders choose to back away, slowly, and slip into the much more comfortable roll of managing widgets.

Trust me; we need widget managers to make sure all the widgets get made. However, without a courageous leader to stand up and draw a map of the destination, all the widgets in the world won’t really add up to much.

I see lots and lots of widgets, but I don’t see a lot of people with a clue about what to do with them.

Setting direction is an art that’s in short supply. We all need to step it up if we want to retain the right to call ourselves artists.

This has been a crazier December than normal.  Not only is it the end of the year and a normally hectic time, we’re in the middle of making a huge change in our family.  It’s that latter part that has my brain fractured and racing in a few different directions.  That’s why I’m as much here as I am there…or there.  No, not there…THERE!  Yeah, over there.  

But a thought came to me that I feel compelled to share, and I think this thought will be my guiding principle in 2011.  It’s simple: people…and I mean all of you (even the ones not reading this which, admittedly, is the vast majority of humanity)…have to start relating to each other differently.  “Differently” as in “better.”  And when I say “better” I mean “more profoundly.”  And when I say “more profoundly” I mean “more genuinely spiritually.”  There: genuinely spiritually.  I get to make up words and phrases.  I’m the writer; that’s what I do.

Here’s the complimentary thought: I have to lead the change.  That’s right; me.  I have to lead the change.  For all of humanity.  It will probably take the rest of my life, but that’s OK.  I’ll probably fail, but that’s OK, too.  I can’t reach everyone, literally and figuratively, but I can spend the rest of my moments on Earth trying.  Not just “trying” in the casual, non-committal sense but “trying” in the sense that I will devote my creativity, my art, my writing, my spirit, the minutes on the clock that are left to me, trying to get others and myself to see that the person sitting on the bus or the train or the plane or the bench next to you is no different that you are.  They are human.  They have the potential and the capacity to experience the same range of emotions you do.  They laugh.  They cry.  They want to be left in peace to pursue their happiness.  They want to feel wanted.  They want to pursue a higher purpose.  They want a friend.  All that stuff that you want.  

I know, I know: there are exceptions.  There are the criminally insane, the chemically imbalanced, the spiritually possessed.  I get it.  Let the trolls and the haters pick apart the things I say and do.  That’s OK.  Want to know a secret?  They want those same things, too.  Go ahead.  Ask them.  Watch them.  You know a troll.  I guarantee you they have wants and needs, joys and sorrows, just like you and me.  Let them focus on the negative.  We’ll focus on other things.  

You’ll join me, won’t you?  

It all comes back to the same thing, over and over again.  That “thing” is love.  That’s right, love.  Wow; how hokey, right?  Corny.  Cheesy.  Roll your eyes.  Shake your head.  “That’s the best he’s got?”  “Sheesh…THAT guy isn’t going to start a revolution.”  Do you know what?  I am going to start a revolution.  Well, I’m not going to start it.  I’m just going to lead a group of people through it.  I know others who will lead other groups of people.  You might grow tired of me, but someone else won’t.  Someone else will keep reading.  They’ll write to me.  They’ll pass along what I share.  They’ll come up with their own words.  And my words will trigger new thoughts in them.  They’ll lead a new group of people, their people…their network…their tribe.  And we’ll be interconnected somehow.  It really won’t matter how.  All that will matter is that I will lead a group of people with love, and they will pass it on.  They will; I promise.  You could be on of them. 

You’ll join me, won’t you?

To recap: people have to relate differently to one another; I have to lead the change; I’ll lead with love; you’ll jump on the ride…mine or your own.

You’ll join me, won’t you?  Or maybe you’ll lead your own…

Crazier December than most…

Technology failed me once again last night. My brilliant post about making little waved got list in the ether. Gone forever!And that’s OK because returning I wanted to say yesterday holds true today. Well, at least to me it does.This is the message: I have never fired, attempted to fire, or been tempted to fire anyone because they make waves. Yes, people who needle and whine and complain about everything are annoying and even toxic in many cases, but that’s not what I am talking about. I am not advocating being negative for the sake I being negative or being distractive and counterproductive to satiate some need to be in control. What I advocate instead is exercising your right to expect and demand a workplace and a life wherein you are respected and valued as a human being. You deserve that. Claim it.If you work or live in a place where you are not free to be the miraculous individual that you are, then escape! Flee! Run! Or choose to stay. Choose to make it better. Choose to work in the system to make the system better. You can choose to stay and work over, under, or around the system, too. That’s a possibility. Whatever you do, don’t sit quietly and take the abuse. It doesn’t end. It doesn’t go away forever. It always comes back. So make little waves and claim your right to make your workplace and your life worth celebrating.

odracir72

September 24th, 2009

odracir72

January 29th, 2009

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January 27th, 2009

odracir72

January 25th, 2009