Leading Questions

Celebrating our Founding Ideals

Today marks two anniversaries, one profound, one incidental. The latter one is the 5th anniversary of this blog. A lot has happened in the five years since I wrote that first post.

The more important anniversary is the founding of our country, the United States of America, on July 4, 1776. I want to share a couple quotes that I find characterize much of what our country stands for. The first is from the beginning of the Declaration of Independence and the second is Emma Lazarus' poem The New Colossus that adorns the base of the Statue of Liberty in New York harbor.

From the Declaration of Independence (1776):

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states.

Emma Lazarus' The New Colossus (1883)

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame,
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Both these statements share an idea about America that today is much less clear. The idea is that the United States is a place where people are free from political despotism and free for "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

The idea of freedom as our founders understood it is much less clear today. What has replaced the notion of the freedom for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is an entitlement to receive it based categories of qualification that the founders would have a difficult time rationalizing with their document of rebellion.

When Emma Lazarus wrote her words at the end of the 19th century, the world was far different. Democracy was in short supply and tyranny was not. People left their countries to come here to begin a new life of freedom. Today, this still takes place but in a global context that is far different from either 126 or 233 years ago.

As we spend our Fourth celebrating the idea of freedom, let's remember that freedom was not an entitlement, but rather an asset which provided to those who were willing, the opportunity to create their life anew. Today, it is still true, and the choice remains between freedom and tyranny.

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/77516834@N00/3672252063/

To live honorably is to recognize how we are connected together

Living honorably, one of The Five Actions of Gratitude, is to live a life of dedication to people and places that either represent ideals that matter or people or places who have made difference in our lives.  To live this way is to recognize that our lives impact others in ways that we may not recognize. As I read my son, Troop's blog post, The Daily Grind, this thought came to mind as he wrote about the relation between the American and Korean teachers in his school in Bundang, South Korea.

I ended up talking to the Korean teachers for almost the entire time at Funnybomb.  Even after a few days of teaching, I had already noticed an invisible wall which existed within the school, in which the foreign and Korean teachers operated in different realms.  Which is a shame, because the Korean teachers seemed like great people.  I mentioned this to the other teachers later on and they had their own assessments.  David, who is leaving on Friday, thinks it’s because the Korean teachers don’t think that we do Korean things.  So if they knew that we wanted to go to a noraebang or go to a hof and get samgyeopsal and that they were welcome, they would want to come.  But I learned from Chris, another fellow teacher, that there are other complicating factors.  One is that many of them live far away, which makes a cab ride after a night out long and lonely and expensive.  The latter problem is perhaps the biggest and the one which surprised me the most, especially when I found out the foreign teachers make about twice what the Koreans do, and that’s not including our housing.

I was surprised that they would pay the Korean so little and us so much comparatively.  When I’d done the calculations on my salary before coming, I figured, Well, it’s not the greatest money in the world, but my housing is paid for and the taxes are pretty low, so I should do decently. But now I realize that I’m living like a king by their standards, which is pretty unbelieveable considering my qualifications and teaching experience (nil).  I also reconsider the behavior of the foreign teachers.  What does that say about Americans when we’re out late every night, throwing money around like it grows on trees, shouting loudly, drinking beers on the street?  That we’re just here in Korea to make easy money and live a life even wilder than college?  I’m reminded of part of  Hunter S. Thompson’s advice for surviving Las Vegas: don’t abuse the locals.  Maybe we’re not abusing them but we might be flaunting whatever advantages Korea has graciously offered us.

...

I just found out today that my school is very seriously considering changing the way Korean teachers are paid.  The Korean home room teachers will have their salary based on how many kids are in their classes and how many come in and, most importantly, how many leave.  This is really big news and has big ramifications for us.  There are three classes per block and the Korean teacher may teach one or two classes in that block.  So if the foreign teachers fail to get the kids learning English and parents pull kids out, the Korean teacher suffers.  But nothing happens to our salary.  I think that the burden is clearly upon us to do our best because our fellow teachers’ well-being is dependent on it.  We can’t really afford to slack off.  I hope the other foreign teachers recognize this as well.

How easy it would be to ignore these social, cultural realities and play the selfish, ugly American? How much better to choose to live with honor by recognizing that one's privileges often come at someone else's expense.

While living honorably is an aspect of living with gratitude, it is also an integral part of leadership. The tradition of honor extends back to the time of Homer and the ancient Greeks. Honor was a dedication to higher ideals and in particular to the community and nation. It was the recognition that I am not simply my own, but owe gratitude to the community. As modern society has become more divided by narrowly defined special interests, the notion of honor has eroded.

Troop's post reminded that the links that connect us together are not all voluntary. Economics and social, cultural values play a role in how societies function. To live with honor is to make the hard to choices to live so that others may have the opportunity to better their lives. 

Make sure to read the whole post and subscribe to Troop's blog feed.

How Risk Tolerant are You?

Seth Godin writes,

It's easy to to adopt the policy of avoiding risk at all costs, that whenever possible, the products you launch or the engagements you have should be flawless and without downside.

Here's the problem: in most endeavors, a small increase in risk can double the reward. It's the second doubling of reward that brings serious risk with it. But the first leap is relatively painless.

The point he makes is true, without risk there is no reward. The greater the risk, the greater the reward.  However, I don't think he has taken this idea far enough.

There is a powerful mythology shared by millions of people that says you can avoid risk and find safety, comfort and security. It is best expressed by those who resist change.

Risk is embedded in every act, decision, thought and encounter.

Risk is not just an issue of the size of reward. It is a core element in the opportunity factor that exists in every situation.

Ask yourself these questions:

Am I busy because I am trying to maximize the potential in every situation and encounter I have?
 
Or, am I busy trying to avoid risk and loss?

People who are too conservative in their approach to risk do not understand that they may be losing out on opportunities because they refuse to risk. People who risk everything for the sheer adrenaline rush of it may also lose through recklessness.

If we accept that risk is a part of everything we do, every day, it changes our perception of reality. It rids us of the delusion that safety, comfort and security can be gained without risk. It puts us in a mindset to be people who are looking for opportunities to take initiative to make a difference.

You can't decide, risk or not risk. Instead, you have to see the risk of acting or not acting in any situation.

To do this, you have to rid yourself of uncritically held assumptions about the past. You have to be clear about the impact that you want to achieve. You have to take charge of your own decisions, rather than simply going along to get along.

Ultimately, managing risk is managing our own tolerance for change. Accept change as a normal aspect of life, and risk takes on a different perspective. Resist change, and risk becomes a focal point for fear and indecision.

Leadership Q&A - Capacity to Grow, Capacity to Change

My latest Weekly Leader Leadership Q&A column is - Capacity to Grow, Capacity to Change - is available.

Let me know what you think. Thanks.

The Way It Should Be

This week's Sports Illustrated updates the story of Sara Tucholsky, a Western Oregon softball player who injured her knee while rounding the bases after hitting her first ever home run. The remarkable nature of the story isn't her home run, but the act of sportsmanship by Central Washington University players Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace who carried Tucholsky the rest of the way around the bases so her homerun would count. Here's the full story.

Now read the SI follow up story about what happened as a result of their act of sportsmanship.

Money poured in after the game, along with candy from strangers. Gary Frederick's team got nearly $25,000 in donations, including at least one check from a soldier in Iraq. The university matched every dollar. The Wildcats got new uniforms for 2009 and new protective screens for pitching practice. Instead of riding to away games in three vans driven by the coaches, they were chauffeured around the Pacific Northwest in a luxury charter bus.

Mallory wants to be Central Washington's next head softball coach, whenever Frederick, who turns 72 in July, decides to retire. In the meantime she and Sara have formed a nonprofit organization, the Mallory Holtman and Sara Tucholsky Sportsmanship Defined Foundation, with the aim of doling out scholarships and teaching kids the right way to play. They have a publicist and a booking agent. Corporations pay them to deliver motivational speeches, including a recent appearance in Florida to educate five or six thousand mortgage brokers on character and responsibility.

Her mother says fame has not changed Mallory, not in the least, but Mallory does admit to one prima donna moment. Last summer, when they were on vacation at a cabin in Idaho, Christy asked Mallory to take out the trash. Mallory had just returned from several plane rides—from a televised awards show to the All-Star Game and back—and she complained about being tired.

"Mallory," her mother said, "you're with family now. You need to check yourself." And Mallory took out the trash.

In July of last year, the girls were honor by ESPN with the ESPY award for Best  Sports Moment. Good choice.

Sports is a venue where simple acts of sportsmanship, heroism and courage can shine a light on the more complex aspects of our lives. We can see that people will do the right thing, will act in a self-sacrificial way, and will act heroically. This is a great story made better by the realization that Mallory wasn't grandstanding her sportsmanship. She was just doing the right thing.

In the beginning there were ... Questions

Today marks the beginning of a writing adventure that has been one of the highlights of my life.

On June 27, 2004, my first Real Life Leadership column - Questions can put a business on the path greater things -  was published in the Asheville Citizen Times. My purpose was to write a leadership question and answer column, sort of a "Dear Abby for Leaders." I wrote in that first column,

Questions drive growth.  If we feel inadequate, we ask questions about why or how do I become more effective.  If an unexpected set back occurs, we ask, “What did I not see?  Where did this come from?  How do I recover?”  If we are presented with a new opportunity, we ask, “Is this the right step?  Am I ready for a change?  What do I need to do first?” 

Questions open up our minds to what is hidden and the possibilities for the future.  They enhance our communication with others.  They resolve conflict.

Five years later, here's what I've learned.

Questions are more important than the answers.

Acting on what we learn is the only way the answers matter.

Life is a journey of exploration, discovery, learning and aspiration fueled by the questions we ask.

We touch far more peoples' lives that we'll ever know.

Gratitude is the reward for making a difference.

Real Life Leadership reached the end of its life this past winter. Today, Leadership Q&A has begun at the online journal Weekly Leader to carry the RLL purpose to a wider audience with a different format.

Your questions and comments matter to me. I'm listening and will continue to try to discern the deeper issues that drive our quest to be the best leaders we can be. It is a coincidence that quest and question are from the same root. 

Thank you all very much for reading over the years.

In Search of Innovation - WSJ

Innovation is a practice and a discipline. It isn't a tactic or public relations pitch. The Wall Street Journal published - In Search of Innovation - a brief, straight-forward article on innovation that is worth passing around.

Here are some of the approaches they describe.

BUILD SCENARIOS
Many companies use teams of writers with diverse perspectives to create complex scenarios of what future markets may look like. The writers try to imagine detailed opportunities and threats for their companies, partners and collaborators. An oil company that wants to explore energy opportunities in cities of the future, for example, might want to work on scenarios with writers from construction, water and utility-management companies.

MOBILIZE THE STAFF
By engaging more of its own workers in the search for innovation, a company can broaden its vision. For example, the duties of procurement, sales or finance groups can be expanded to include learning about trends they encounter that ordinarily might be considered not of primary interest to the company.
 
START A CONVERSATION
Sometimes innovations arise when different departments talk to each other. But what’s the best way to start the conversation?

Many companies set up so-called communities of practice, which are typically internal Web sites where employees are encouraged to share knowledge and skills important to the company.

There are some good ideas here. You'll have to do some research to find ways to implement them, but it is a good list of options.

Quick Takes: Umair Haque on Tehran 2.0

It don't read Umair Haque, you should. Here's his letter to Iranian leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

You're the Supreme Leader, so I guess you probably think you hold all the cards. The problem is that it's the last hand of the last game — ever.

Here's what you're up against: the new economics of organization.

You command and control. The opposition self-organizes.

Your advantage is force. The opposition's is resilience.

You had a strategy — to maintain power. The opposition has a purpose — to change the world.

You divide and conquer. The opposition links and unifies.

You wield thin power — violence. The opposition wields thick power — belief.

If one voice can change a room — then it can change the world.

What does that really mean?

There is nothing more asymmetrical than an ideal.

This is true of all organizational structures that are dependent on controlling the imagination and initiative of people. Haque closes his letter with the following.

PS — If you really want to understand the difference between 20th century strategy and 21st century strategy — read this. And reflect on how it's exactly the opposite of what most businesses would do. Much love to the Twitter crew for standing up for their ideals.

The Virtue of Wandering

In our house, the Travel Channel and Rick Steves' PBS show are some of our favorite places to veg on the TV. We especially enjoy watching Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. His wry, cynical, yet loving look at people in far away places through the language of food and hospitality captures our family's love and experience of travel.

My oldest son, Troop, has long had the travel bug. His latest venture has taken him to South Korea for a year to teach English. He's begun a blog called The Virtue of Wandering. I highly recommend it. Not just because I'm his father, but more so,  because he is a keen observer of his surroundings. Here are a couple of his initial reflections.

What will stay with me the most from this place, I already know, long after sights and events have faded into soft focus, are the smells.  To a Westerner, they are completely and utterly unfamiliar and overpowering.  I’m used to the smell of woods, wet grass, the earthy aroma of decomposing leaves.  Or if I’m in town, the reek of car fumes and asphalt on a hot day.  But here in Korea, just walking down the street you come across odors that can make the unprepared almost gasp for air.  What the hell is that smell?
...

I think at the root of this matter is that Korea is an ancient society and a Confucian one.  Their whole concept of self and its relationship to the whole is fundamentally different, for it is about harmony, about one’s place in the world, within the established order, and not deviating from it.  Short of being inside a Korean’s head, I really don’t think that Westerners can fully grasp the significance of this.  We in the West have a fundamentally different understanding of ideas, of objects and their relation to us and to others.  We are Greek, whether we like it or not, believers in logic, ideals, in the primacy of the way an individual conceives of and approaches Truth.  We argue and debate, trying to extract what we can define as Right and Correct from that clash.  Here in Korea, they do not think like that.  How do they think? . . . well, I have even less of a clue now.

Here are links to his first three postings.

Two Weeks

I live here

(Ol)factory recall

Make sure you subscribe to Troop's site. Follow his life immersed in a world very different than ours here in Western North Carolina.

Leadership Q&A - What's On Your Checklist?

My latest Weekly Leader Leadership Q&A column - What's On Your Checklist? - is posted.

This week I'm addressing an issue that I see in many places. It is the issue of staff who tend not to look at the big picture, but rather simply treat their job as a daily checklist to complete.

The antidote is to become an impact leadership business. Focus on the change you want to create, rather than the tasks that need to be created.

Use the Circle of Impact guides to help build awareness and communication to make the transition. If you would like to talk about how, let me know. I'll be glad to help.

The Price of Arrival

Roy Williams, the Wizard of Ads, posts in his weekly memo, a  provocative comparison between goals and plans.

“Goal,” in my experience, is a favorite word of people who talk and dream and dream and talk. And then they get together to “network” with other talkers. There’s always a lot of noise in these meetings but it’s unlikely than anything of consequence is going to happen. People who chatter about goals are rarely willing to die on that mountain.

I have no goals. But I do have plans.

A plan puts you in motion toward a destination. The destination you choose is irrelevant. It is (1.) motion, (2.) determination and (3.) commitment that separate destination-reaching explorers from goal-setting chipmunks.

Count the cost, explorer. “Am I willing to die on this mountain?”

The Wizard is wise.

A goal is a marker along a trail. If you know orienteering practice, that goal could be only ten yards ahead of you. It is never a destination, but a point along the way.

The sign in the picture above could be in my front yard. Instead it is on top of Mt. Phillips in New Mexico. The arrival at this sign was not the point. Arrival at the top of Mt. Phillips was. The plan to arrive at this destination required lots of planning and execution. It was not achieved on a whim or sitting in my kitchen writing on a notepad my goals.

There were times when climbing this mountain my lungs burned, my legs shook, and my head was dizzy. I was not as young as my fellow climbers. I did my part for the team holding up the back of the line. They did their part by giving me encouragement and the honor of being the first to arrive at our destination.

The arrival at the top of Mt. Phillips was a goal, a marker along a much longer, more ambitious path, and not the end of the journey. It continued on with other mountains to climb. And that holds true to today.

There are three questions that should be asked by us.

1. Do I have a destination?

2. Do I have fellow travelers who want to go with me to that destination?

3. Am I willing to pay the price to arrive?

If you answer no to any of these questions, you are not ready to embark on your journey.

Devolution of the Industrial Age

If the industrial age is over, then how is this impacting government and politics?

An interesting Wall Street Journal article, Divided We Stand by Paul Starobin, addresses the phenomenon of devolution of national and state entities.

Picture an America that is run not, as now, by a top-heavy Washington autocracy but, in freewheeling style, by an assemblage of largely autonomous regional republics reflecting the eclectic economic and cultural character of the society.

There might be an austere Republic of New England, with a natural strength in higher education and technology; a Caribbean-flavored city-state Republic of Greater Miami, with an anchor in the Latin American economy; and maybe even a Republic of Las Vegas with unfettered license to pursue its ambitions as a global gambling, entertainment and conventioneer destination. California? America’s broke, ill-governed and way-too-big nation-like state might be saved, truly saved, not by an emergency federal bailout, but by a merciful carve-up into a trio of republics that would rely on their own ingenuity in making their connections to the wider world. And while we’re at it, let’s make this project bi-national—economic logic suggests a natural multilingual combination between Greater San Diego and Mexico’s Northern Baja, and, to the Pacific north, between Seattle and Vancouver in a megaregion already dubbed “Cascadia” by economic cartographers.

Gives one pause to consider a Disunited States of America. Before we cast the thought off as silly or impractical, consider the follow trends that are taking place in other arenas.

• The rise of social media, Facebook and Twitter, as new virtual communities that unite people around common interests and commitments.
• The globalization of business so that national boundaries are less a consideration for how business is conducted and the culture and work-ethic of the people is.
• The growth of entrepreneurial businesses in the under-developed world through the many agencies like the Jacqueline Novogratz's Acumen Fund and Muhammad Yunus' Grameen Bank.

What we see is a shift away from large, impersonal institutions to small networks of people who work together for a common goal. In many respects this is a throw back to an early time. Starobin makes this point.

Devolved America is a vision faithful both to certain postindustrial realities as well as to the pluralistic heart of the American political tradition—a tradition that has been betrayed by the creeping centralization of power in Washington over the decades but may yet reassert itself as an animating spirit for the future. Consider this proposition: America of the 21st century, propelled by currents of modernity that tend to favor the little over the big, may trace a long circle back to the original small-government ideas of the American experiment. The present-day American Goliath may turn out to be a freak of a waning age of politics and economics as conducted on a super-sized scale—too large to make any rational sense in an emerging age of personal empowerment that harks back to the era of the yeoman farmer of America’s early days. The society may find blessed new life, as paradoxical as this may sound, in a return to a smaller form.

While I don't see state political boundaries changing, I do those boundaries having less significance in the future. It is what I mean when I see local communities gaining strength because state and federal governments are unable to provide what they claim.

From this perspective, I'd say that the Barack Obama phenomenon is a transitory one, much like the post-Brezhev era in the Soviet Union. There was a belief by smart, forward thinking people that they could make the system work. As we see in the 1980's Soviet system, we may be seeing the beginning of the same decline in our own federal system.The nation's real counterbalance is the local entrepreneur, small business.

My hope is the same as Starobin's.

The most hopeful prospect for the USA, should the decentralization impulse prove irresistible, is for Americans to draw on their natural inventiveness and democratic tradition by patenting a formula for getting the job done in a gradual and cooperative way. In so doing, geopolitical history, and perhaps even a path for others, might be made, for the problem of bigness vexes political leviathans everywhere.

However, if this to happen, we need to see a people who join together at the local level to address local needs, and not merely protest. Advocacy highlights the need, but it is entrepreneurial action which creates the change and builds the strength that we will need.

Leadership Q&A - Leading through Issue Resolution

I've begun a leadership question and answer column at Weekly Leader.

My latest column - Leading through Issue Resolution - addresses a topic that I see in a wide variety of places. Issue resolution.

Check out the column, and leave a comment. Thanks.

Practical Innovation - John La Grou's Safeplug

A lot of people can think up new ideas. It is the person who take that idea and does something with it that impresses me. John La Grou is one of those people. He's a widely talented and accomplish individual. You'll get the idea what his TED conference video.

After posting his video, John let me know that there is some background that is worth reading. You can find it here. Here's some what he said.

John La Grou: I used my three minutes to talk about the significant life-saving and energy-saving potential of our invention. But statistics don’t convey the pain and personal loss suffered daily from severe electrical fires, shocks, and burns. Nor does an abstraction like “saving electricity” adequately express the profound improvement this brings to our planet and quality of life together.

Immediately after my talk, Majora Carter (who gave the very first TEDTalk I ever watched, and is still among my TED bio Top Five talks) came up to me and shared that her good friends had just two weeks ago lost their Bronx house to an electrical fire. Majora was deeply shaken by this loss, but greatly encouraged upon hearing of our technology. She asked me how she could help spread the word about this invention.

When we experience loss directly, the urgency of life-saving technology becomes crystal clear. I would hope that my "extra TED minute" would inspire everyone to help us spread the word. The technology is here, now, to prevent daily human tragedy, if we would simply choose to employ it in our homes and businesses. ...

(Visit Safeplug.com and 2d2c.com.)

HT: Bill Kinnon

The New Intelligence

If you stand on a hill, and look across a divide to the horizon, some times you see  something of awe-inspiring beauty. This morning I awoke realizing that I've been seeing something that I can only call the New Intelligence. I'm not talking about smarts, but rather a collection of seemingly random ideas that reveal a pattern of insight.

What I see is represented by the following authors who have influenced my thinking. Each one is different. There are connections to what they have written. But the connecting links are not obvious. You have to read them to begin to see what I see. And I encourage you to do so.

Daniel Pink - A Whole New Mind

Seth Godin-Tribes

Tom Morris - If Aristotle Ran General Motors

Matt May - In Pursuit of Elegance

Chip Heath & Dan Heath - Made to Stick

Dan Roam - The Back of the Napkin

Garr Reynolds - Presentation Zen

Bill Moggridge - Designing Interactions

Keith Ferrazzi - Who's Got Your Back

Hugh MacLeod - Ignore Everybody

J.K. Rowling - Harry Potter (All seven volumes)

What is it that I see?

First, the eclipse of two eras. The era of Industrialization and its offspring, the era of Corporatization. The second is the era of Information. What is emerging?

The Era of Connection. That isn't a new idea, others have said much the same thing.

However, here is what I see as different. 

The era of connection is taking place in two ways and is why the eras of industry, corporations and information are being eclipsed.

My Circle of Impact diagram, I now realize, provides a visualization of what I see.

Connection is driven by creativity and design in the Ideas dimension.

Connection is driven by the desire to be free to explore, discover, create and connect with others in the dimension of Relationships.  

These connections are powered by the rise of social media that provides a new organizational context for creativity and social interaction.

The New Intelligencia are those who bring creativity into their relationships.

Yes, we could say, borrowing from Tom Morris' section on Beauty in his book, that today, our connection with people is a performance art.

I encourage you to read the above books and see if you see what I see. I also encourage you to answer this question.

If creativity in relationships is the mark of the Era of Connection, then what should we expect the impact to be?

What should we see rising from our social relationships as an art form?

Please think about this and share your thoughts here. If you have questions that take this to another level, please ask them, and I'll address them in my new Leadership Q&A column at Weekly Leader.

Let's get creative and see what we can create together.

Conversation about Crisis Management and Issue Resolution

Welcome Twitter followers and Weekly Leader readers.

Every leader is a crisis manager.
Is it necessary?
What can be done to make things different?

This is the topic of my next Leaders Q&A column at Weekly Leader.

Let me know you thoughts and questions about  how leaders can do a better job of issue resolution.

Leave you ideas in the comments section. Thanks very much.

Leadership Q&A - my new Weekly Leader column

For four and a half years, I wrote the Real Life Leadership column for the Asheville Citizen-Times. I had a great time doing it. Each of my editors were helpful to this novice columnist.

The experience taught me how to write. Try to be eloquent, profound and practical in 500 words. It isn't easy. I'm still learning. Old habits die hard.

My time with paper ended last winter, and a new column is being born at the online journal, Weekly Leader. The column is called Leadership Q&A, which means it is bascially like my old column, except without the space limitations and a far larger audience.  I still aspire to be Dear Abby for Leaders.

I've published two columns thus far. I invite you to visit the site and read the columns. Here are the columns and their links.

Questions, Questions, Questions

Too Many Hats or just One Big One

I will post at least once a week, but maybe more. It depends on the number of questions I receive. If you have a topic that you'd like me to address, drop me a note with your question and a context for understanding its importance.

To all my Real Life Leadership readers, thank you for your support of the column and your kind remarks to me. Please join me in continuing our discussion at Weekly Leader each week.

The Leader's Mystery Box

Matt May, author of In Pursuit of Elegance posts JJ Abrams', creator of Lost and, in theaters now, Star Trek, TED talk on The Mystery Box. Watch it, then we'll talk.

Matt's point in pointing to Abrams' talk is to illustrate the importance of the missing element in a product or story that makes it more compelling, more elegant.

How do leaders create The Mystery Box in their leading?

One of the things that I've learned over the years is what I call leadership by vacuum. A vacuum is a space that is empty, but not meaningless. Space is a vacuum, but it isn't meaningless. It is a place where things exist. Here are two ways leaders create a leadership vacuum that must be filled by the leadership of others.

In organizations, leaders create vacuum by refusing to do everything everyone expects them to do.  Instead, leaders limit what they do to what they do best, and they create the space for others to step forward and fill the vacuum. This is how leaders expand leadership throughout their organization.

In this sense, leaders lead by subtracting the number of responsibilities that they are required to do by turning them over to people who can do them better.  The leader is still responsible for the outcome of the responsibility, but not necessarily for the administration of them.

Of course, this requires a high level of maturity on the part of the leader. They must be comfortable with the ambiguity that comes with giving away control, and with admitting publicly that there are areas that they are not the strongest person in the business.

Another place I see this happening is with the difficulty with issue resolution in business. Last month, I wrote about Resolving Complex Issues Simply.

An issue arises between two people or with a process. Who is responsible for resolving the issue? Is it the leader's responsibility? The logical answer may be yes. The realistic answer is no. In fact, deferring all issue resolution to the leader is to create a higher level of crisis in the organization. It forces leadership to be concentrated on putting out fires instead of acting on strategic initiatives.

When leaders create space, open up space for others to lead, they lower the crisis level of issue resolution.  To the degree that they can, issues should be resolved by those who are charged to implement the resolution. The problem is that most organizations are not equipped for leaders to lead this way. In fact the whole structure of most businesses is predicated on no one taking initiative beyond a very narrow range of responsibilities. As a result, not only does the leader have to spend his or her time resolving issues, but everyone else thinks in terms of avoiding taking that responsibility and passing the buck up the chain of command.

Creating a leadership vacuum forces issue resolution to its lowest level of responsibility. It doesn't happen by simply issuing a memo stating so. The structure of the organization has to function to give people the safety and security, the boundaries and methodologies to follow, that results in quicker and less painful issue resolution.

The mystery box in most businesses can be the vacuum that leaders create that compel people to step up and lead. I've seen it happen. It requires an intentional process of change to make it happen. If you want to know more, just ask.

D-Day's 21st Century Message

Today marks the 65th anniversary of the D-Day invasion. It is a day that should be celebrated for many reasons.

For the act that led to the end of the war in Europe.

For the ordinary men through their extraordinary acts of bravery and sacrifice who became the Greatest Generation.

And for the importance of freedom as central value of civilization.

The world is very different today than cold, cloudy June 6, 1944. Yet, what hasn't changed is the importance of freedom for a world of peace and prosperity.

As I watched the anniversary ceremonies from the Normandy American Cemetery today, I had John Fund's Wall Street Journal column from yesterday - Human Rights beyond Ideology - on my mind. He writes about the Oslo Freedom Forum conference on human rights.

"It's pretty simple," says Thor Halvorssen, a human-rights activist and the conference's 33-year-old founder. "We all should want freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom from torture, freedom to travel, due process and freedom to keep what belongs to you." Unfortunately, he explains, "the human-rights establishment at the United Nations is limited to pretty words because so many member countries kill or imprison or torture their opponents."

I'm convinced that those of us in the West take our freedoms for granted. We don't value them in the same way as those have either lost them or never had them.

The conference also brought together activists from far-flung corners of the world. Palden Gyatso, a diminutive Tibetan monk, told horrifying tales of being imprisoned for 33 years and being tortured by Chinese captors who wedged electric batons into his mouth and destroyed all of his teeth. After his talk, he was embraced by Harry Wu, a survivor of 19 years in China's network of labor camps, which still contain untold numbers of prisoners.

Although quiet and reserved, Abdel Nasser Ould Ethmane kept his audience riveted as he told of how he'd been raised in an elite Mauritanian family that kept slaves even after the practice was officially abolished in his land in 1981. While living in Paris as an adult, he became infuriated at the world's indifference to slavery and teamed up with a former slave from Mauritania to provide legal help to escapees and also conduct covert rescue operations of those still in bondage. Mr. Ethmane's talk was followed by presentations from two powerful speakers from Kurdistan and Uzbekistan, both women who had served time for democratic activism.

This reminds me of Russian Alexander Solzhenitsyn's struggle against the Soviet regime. In his1970 Nobel Prize for Literature address, he states,

A quarter of a century ago, in the great hopes of mankind, the United Nations Organization was born. Alas, in an immoral world, this too grew up to be immoral. It is not a United Nations Organization but a United Governments Organization where all governments stand equal; those which are freely elected, those imposed forcibly, and those which have seized power with weapons. Relying on the mercenary partiality of the majority UNO jealously guards the freedom of some nations and neglects the freedom of others. As a result of an obedient vote it declined to undertake the investigation of private appeals - the groans, screams and beseechings of humble individual PLAIN PEOPLE - not large enough a catch for such a great organization. UNO made no effort to make the Declaration of Human Rights, its best document in twenty-five years, into an OBLIGATORY condition of membership confronting the governments. Thus it betrayed those humble people into the will of the governments which they had not chosen.

My point is not against the UN as an organization, but against the countries who use it to avoid the issue of freedom in their countries. The men and women who spoke at the Oslo conference were ordinary people with extraordinary courage. They are this century's Greatest Generation.

At the beginning of this century, I thought this would be the century of freedom. However the past half dozen years has changed my mind on this. If freedom is to return to its rightful place as the core value of civilization, it will be because the average, ordinary person is willing to sacrifice to make it happen.

In 1979, Alexander Solzhenitsyn delivered the commencement address at Harvard University. The speech was controversial because of his criticism of the West. Here's a portion that describes what he saw as a now resident of the United States.

A Decline in Courage ... may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. Of course there are many courageous individuals but they have no determining influence on public life. Political and intellectual bureaucrats show depression, passivity and perplexity in their actions and in their statements and even more so in theoretical reflections to explain how realistic, reasonable as well as intellectually and even morally warranted it is to base state policies on weakness and cowardice. And decline in courage is ironically emphasized by occasional explosions of anger and inflexibility on the part of the same bureaucrats when dealing with weak governments and weak countries, not supported by anyone, or with currents which cannot offer any resistance. But they get tongue-tied and paralyzed when they deal with powerful governments and threatening forces, with aggressors and international terrorists.

Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?

The men who climbed Point du Hoc on D-Day did so knowing that they risked certain death. They did it because it was their duty to do so.They did it because their cause was greater than themselves. They did it because they knew that failure was not an option. These were not the greatest athletes, academics or business leaders of their day. They were ordinary young men, fresh out of high school who saved the world for freedom. Today their are men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in many other parts of the world who also understand that they are the bulwark against tyranny and terrorism. They serve with the same self-sacrificing spirit.

D-Day may seem a long time ago. In truth, very little has changed. The challenge to preserve and protect freedom is still the same, only more sophisticated. In your thoughts and prayers this day, please remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice so you and I can sit in our homes, write our blogs and read about what others think about the day's events. And please say thanks to the veterans you know, regardless of age or conflict in which they served. They will not expect it, seek it out and accept it as their entitlement. Tell them anyway because they deserve our thanks and respect.

HT: D-Day picture by Robert Capa.

Real Life Leadership becomes Leadership Q&A at Weekly Leader

Many of you know that for a number of years, I wrote a column for the Asheville Citizen-Times called Real Life Leadership. The column became a victim of the budget cuts at the beginning of the year.

I'm pleased to announce that a similar column is being reborn at the online leadership journal, Weekly Leader.  My initial column is Questions, Questions, Questions.

Check it out. Lots of good stuff over there.

Random thoughts while reading Seth Godin

I'm a fan of Seth Godin. His insights are ones I almost universally share.  Here are some of snippets from recent posts and my random thoughts while reading them.

Thinking About the Compromise

If you've built your life around service to others, how much more could you accomplish if you were a little greedier? If you've built an expensive lifestyle around a well-paying job, what would happen to your life if you downsized and sought out more joy or generosity?

The rest of us have compromised. We're not profit-maximizing sociopaths, nor are we saints. We're somewhere in between.

Here's my simple take on this. Money is the most tangible item of value that we have to exchange. I'd do what I do today whether I made money or not. As a result, I'm more service oriented, and less money oriented. I've discovered over the years that the lack of sufficient financial resources is an inhibitor to providing the level of service that I desire to give.

On the other hand, I know people for whom money has a corrupting influence on their lives. They aren't greedy or avaricious. Instead, they are highly risk averse, protective and overly defensive.

The great challenge for ambitious people is to keep perspective that allows us to be free of fear and want. I learned much of this a number of years ago when I tripled my consulting rates. Almost over night the projects changed, and I changed as well. 

Out of Bounds

The real problem is that when marketers believe they are going out of bounds, the work they do tends to be lousy. ...  I am, however, arguing that once you have permission to talk to someone, finding new products or services for them is a smart way to grow.

I read this in the context of the transitions that businesses go through. Often to go from one level to the next means breaking rules and going outside preconceived boundaries. It means going through The Dip that Seth writes about. It means stop doing some things and starting new ones. This is one of the ideas that Matt May writes about in his new book In Pursuit of Elegance.  Seth is right that you need to be in conversation, but it is also true that sometimes you have break the rules, cross boundaries and create new markets for your business. It isn't easy, but it sure beats decline.

Learning from the MBA program

Here’s what I told the group, “Maybe the most important thing you'll learn in this program is that you don't need this program. There's not much I'm going to tell you that's not in my blog posts or books. What this program will do is give you the structure and support to encourage you to do what you already know. But you can do that by yourselves.” I think that’s true for the people who weren’t able to be part of it as well.

Final takeaways:

1.  If you have the resources and wherewithal to run a program like this, you should.
2,  If you're stuck, getting unstuck is not only possible, it's an obligation.
3.  Find some peers and push each other.
4.  Making friends for life is difficult to overrate. Every one of these people is an all-star and I'm glad that I got to know them.

This post reflects back on a five month alternative MBA project that Seth conducted. Read the post to learn more about the specifics.

People need structure to succeed. However, too often the organizational structure gets in the way of the people and their work together.  Ideas, which includes everything that is taking place conceptually, is either enhanced or diminished by structure. Relationships are the same. Seth's project created a supportive environment for the imagination of these men and women to excel. It is important to recognize that whatever your organizational structure, if it does not make it easier for people to excel in their work, then you need to break it so you can fix it so it will.

When smart people are hard to understand

If you're in a meeting with smart people and they start discussing a term or concept you don't understand, what do you do? ...
The first is to ask. "Wait, I was with you until a second ago. What does that mean?" You'll be amazed at how smart and engaging this makes you seem if you say it at the right time.

The second approach is to write it down and not go to bed that night until you know the topic better than the person who brought it up. How else, precisely, are you going to become one of the smart people?

Two lessons here. One, always ask questions. Even if you know what they are talking about, ask the question. Asking a question doesn't mean that you don't know, but rather you are wanting to learn, and in particular learn how this person understands the topic.

The second lesson is not just spend your life as learner, but look forward to where the next big idea is coming from. My practice is to look up ideas that are new to me.

For example, the other Bill Taylor had a post about researcher Saras Sarasvathy who has been looking at how entrepreneurs think. She has coined the term "effectual reasoning." I had never heard of this term prior to reading it in Bill's post. I now have a half dozen academic papers on effectual reasoning and entrepreneurism that I'm going to dig into when I have some quiet time to read and reflect. Once I do, then I'll have another little resevoir of knowledge that I can draw upon to understand what is happening with clients.

My recommendation is that you make it a practice of reading Seth regularly. You'll gain much from the experience.

What does this woman know that other politicians don't?

I'm thinking of moving to Mississauga, Ontario. Here's why.

HT: David Pu'u

BAA-utiful

When I saw this, I could not stop laughing.

Could never do this with cats.
HT: Red Maxwell

We are what we do

Everyone needs a dog. Dogs cut through the verbal mumbo-jumbo that we humans pass off as our intentions and purposes in life. All they know is action. Our dog Thor only knows us through our actions. He loves us and is loyal to us because we scratch his head, throw him a tennis ball and steal firewood from him so that he can chase us. Thor only knows us through our actions toward him. Because Thor is simple like that, he makes it simpler for us as a family to love each other. Thank you, Thor.

Over the past few weeks, I've met a guy, who will go nameless, who, through his blog, has introduced me to a woman, whom I've now met, who will also go nameless because of her story. She personifies a principle that I believe is important for leaders to understand.  Her story in moment.

I meet people all the time who tell me their stories. What is compelling in their stories is not their rationale or their interpretation of it, but rather their description of the actions they have taken to get where they are.

Thirty years ago, when I was in seminary, there was an idea floating around some churches, and is still prevalent today under different names, that all you had to do is claim God's blessing, and it was yours. It was dubbed, "Name and Claim It." What I found then was that for the vast majority of people who accepted this belief system, it was an invitation to passivity, an entitlement mindset and the self-deception of blaming others for their own failure to act. Believing in "Name and Claim It" became an emotional narcotic that was not fed by action, but by constantly seeking out new inspiration to believe in the idea. I find it sad and incidious.

My assessment of this success faith is that it is a parasite on the richer tradition of individual freedom and entrepreneurism. It is parasitic because the belief suggests that all you must do to be successful is place an idea in your head, and it will come true. Not so, every successful person I know has worked hard to get ahead and stay ahead. There is no magic to becoming a successful person. Even the luckiest, gain and keep their success through hard work and perseverance through the many transition points that are required to create a successful life.

I set up this woman's story with this conceptual context because of what she did, not what she said she did. I leave her name out, simply to respect the anonymity of her actions. What she did was not done for fame or recognition, but rather to be herself, to live an authentic life, each and everyday. I honor her action by not granting her more public exposure than she wishes.

Let me give her the initial H as her name to make the telling of the story easier. H is a part of group of people who work in most communities as rescue workers. Her rescue work is on the water. She is the leader of a team of water rescuers. They train hard. And they put their life on the line for people every day. They are like the police officers who run toward gun fire, the firefighters who run into burning buildings, and soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen who go into the most violent places in our world to provide safety for us at home. H is in this class of person. Even before hearing her story, I had the highest level of respect for her because I know people just like her.

To know me is to understand that I place a person's actions above their intentions. I believe that we spend most of our lives rationalizing either our action or non-action. We are people prone to self-deception, and it is only through dealing with the hardest, darkest side ourselves that we discover the truth of who we genuinely are. To see this is to be free of fear of discovery, free from humiliation, free no longer to appear to be more than we truly are, and instead to act to do what we must to do be our authentic selves.

H's story is one of heroism. She was returning home to her family after a weekend of training. She comes across an automobile accident that has just happened. Let my other friend tell the story as he heard it.

Just got a call. A visceral scream was the first thing I heard. Someone unloading into their phone and I was the recipient. Confusion, alarm, concern, all the keywords one goes through when you know something bad has happened to the person on the phone with you, flashed my psyche as dread fell upon me.
I  then realized that (H) was the gutteral scream. She was in her car, naked for the most part, burned, bruised, in shock. We established a rapport and I began to talk her down.
It is 12:15 AM. I am now wired and beyond alert. (H) had rung off as she reached her home in (C). I knew that she had just done a long day at sea with the military in an appreciation day that her company, ... had just put on.
In her weary drive home she had rolled up on a flame wall on the (X highway). She said that she had driven through it and that it looked like Armageddon. Pulling up to a burning car she got out and saw movement in the flames. Grabbing a prybar she broke the window and grabbed at the squirming flame ball that was a man. She said his hands had looked like candles as they burned.
There were bystanders and she screamed for help, but as sometimes happens no one moved and as she managed to gain control of the flaming man she began to pull him out and his foot caught in the debris. Screaming at the bystanders, they finally broke from shock and jumped the two.  As they dragged the guy away, the car exploded.
“I smell (D), I smell like fire and burning flesh, I think I fractured my arm, I am almost home”
H thought that the car had punctured it’s tank in a collision with the guard rail, setting off the tempest. I am taking a sip of vodka right now. It burns and rasps my throat. I am worried about my friend.  Emotionally peaking myself, because I love her and can do nothing. But knowing H, I understand that she will be all right. Eventually. Someone lives tonight, albeit in agony, because H was where she was supposed to be. It is her lot, this sort of thing. Lucky guy.
H always lectures us that rescue (and life) is all about seconds and feet. You have seconds in which to assess and feet in which to react. Tonight once again she illustrated her point. Seconds and feet.

H acted heroically. Talk to military people and they will tell you that the only heroes are the ones who lost their lives in battle. To be a hero is to act sacrificially, even if it means giving your life for another. This is what I see in H's action. A hero acts, not out of a desire for fame and recognition, but rather out of a commitment to serve.

The leadership principle is this. Our actions lead others, and our words follow. They are the measure of who we are. If we say one thing, and do another, we create doubt about our authenticity. If we act wrongly, and then explain it away as if it does not matter, then we have driven a wedge between ourselves and others. When we rationalize our inaction or failure, tossing blame on someone else or institution, we rob ourselves of truth, and consequently our freedom to be authentic.

Yesterday, I was introduced to another woman, and in the spirit of the post, she'll remain nameless too. I'll call her F. I have a lot of respect for her.  In telling me her story, she told me how she has come to understand the power of forgiveness. For her it is not an idea for appreciation, but how she has learned to treat those who have hurt her deeply in her life. She lives forgiveness, just as H lives heroism. And she is free as a result to be her true, authentic self.

We are what we do. As leaders, how we treat people, not what we say for public consumption is what matters. This is what our family saw everyday from our dog Thor. Monday night, after two weeks of rapidly declining health, Thor, was put down.  Thor was loyal, loving and a part of our family. He didn't care about my intentions or my philosophizing. All he knew were my actions toward him. All he wanted was for me to chase him, to throw firewood to him and rub his head.

Consider today what you do. You only have seconds and feet to take the right actions. There are people around you who are watching, looking for you to act in accordance with what you believe. Ideas matter, but only as they reveal our inner motivation to act. Our actions are mirror of our intentions.

We lead by actions, and our words follow. Make sure that they are one and the same, and you'll find peace and freedom, and the respect and love of others in return.

Good bye, Thor, my friend. Rest in peace

Kids get Philanthropy

Acumen Fund Fund Day for Kids

Oh, to be a kid again with the whole world opening up to you as you get exposed to people like those at the Acumen Fund. Watch this video of Fund Day at the Acumen Fund.

And how cool to hear a kid say,

My favorite part of the day was creating a business.

Share the video with kids that you know. Influence them to see that they can make a difference in the world.

This week's The Economist has a article - The Patient Capitalist - on the Acumen Fund. I also encourage you to read founder and CEO Jacqueline Novogratz book, The Blue Sweater. I posted my review of her book here.

RandomKid/ Sustainable Cambodia/ Green Valley School (PA) water project

If you children want to get involved in social enterprise opportunities, check out RandomKid, a place where kids can get the mentoring to take their own ideas for helping and making a difference and change the world.

Yesterday, I received a report from RandomKid president Anne Ginther about one of their projects. Here's what she wrote.

Recently we partnered with a group to put a windmill in Cambodia that will provide the energy to water gardens for 40 families. The cost for the project was $4500, and the funding was donated to us by Exelon Nuclear for this purpose, in partnership with a RandomKid school in Pennsylvania. The cost included the windmill materials, catchment, seeds-- everything needed from start to finish. It's being built as I write this.

These kinds of projects are taking place all over the world. Just as the Acumen Fund needs investment funds, so does RandomKid, and a host of other organizations that help kids become social philanthropists. If you can help financially do so, if you can, pass along this post to those who can. Your influence just may make the difference for a child.

Thought you'd like to see one of the children from the village that  received the well. Her name is Sreyvin. Here's her letter of thanks.

My name is Sreyvin, I am a 12 year old girl. I have four sisters, and no brothers. My family and I eat fish for dinner. I live in Mong village, Svay Att commune, Pursat town. I am in grade 4 at Chhom Monny primary school. I like to read books in my free time. I know a little English.

They built a basin next the pond. There will be a fan about the basin to suck water into the basin. There are water tubes to share the water from the pond.

Because of you, I am able to go to study on time and regularly. You have provided me with enough water to use daily, and to cultivate my plants. My community has become a very green community. Because of you, my family will have a better life.

Here's a drawing of their village by one of the children. 

The children, with RamdomKid's assistance, worked with Sustainable Cambodia on the water project.

Richard Allen describes their organization.

As volunteer CEO and co-founder of the Rotary-supported nonprofit
organization Sustainable Cambodia, I invite you to explore the work our staff is doing in Cambodian villages. We are a working to help the residents of these rural villages create a sustainable quality of life through wells, irrigation systems, schools, training and empowerment. By our founding principles, only native Cambodians may be employed as paid staff, and all international officers, directors and consultants must be unpaid volunteers, ensuring that 100% of funding goes directly into the rural village programs. Please explore more about Sustainable Cambodia at www.SustainableCambodia.org 

These are projects that children through their schools, congregations and other organizations can support. Acumen Fund and RandomKid are doing different things, but they are complementary. Acumen Fund addresses poverty through "patient capitalism" through investment in the establishment of micro-enterprises. RandonKid is a catalyst for children's interest in making a different in the world by connecting with projects suited to their commitments and abilities.

These are the kinds of organizations that will be the media structures for the emerging global society. Stay in touch and support their efforts. They are the real change agents of the future.

Twitter needs to grow small

Twitter is a unique social media platform. With a character limit of 140, posts are short, simple platitudes at their most superficial and genuinely wise and connecting at their best. In an article in the Wall Street Journal - Twitter Trips on Its Rapid Growth - we read the following.

The biggest issues facing founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone are bringing on new staff to get ahead of its user growth while working out a business model. Twitter is free and the company doesn't sell advertising.

"Twitter has no current revenue stream to balance the costs," says Gartner Inc. research analyst Allen Weiner.

Twitter isn't Facebook, as I wrote about here. It is different because it provides a way of connection that doesn't require the management of a complex infrastructure. You just post and listen.

Here's what co-founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone have to say about their next steps.

Twitter will need more "business-type folks eventually," says Mr. Williams, but those are the "parts of the business that we haven't fleshed out yet."

Twitter's plans for the near future include a new homepage, says Mr. Stone. Today Twitter.com is geared toward showing people how to post a Tweet, he said, but in the future, Twitter wants it to highlight how the service can help people discover what is going on around them, says Mr. Stone.

"In the long-run, we need to make Twitter the product more relevant to more people," he says.

My own opinion on Twitter's future is that it is being smaller. Not smaller in posts size, but smaller in how it sees the value of its service. What most large corporate organizations struggle with is communication. Email and internal bulletin boards don't meet that need. They are either too formal or cumbersome to use.

Twitter on the other hand could be a platform that provides a way for large segments of a company to be in constant communication. In a sense it is like cross-training. If folks in accounting are twittering and those in sales are receiving their tweets, then a sense of the whole life of the company begins to unfurl in people's minds.

Twitter can sell a customized platform that provides security and builds a level of conversational community that is hard to produce in many organizations. They are selling a customized package that is focused on building community with security. This is one way Twitter addresses its need for a business plan that can provide a marketable benefit that produces a dependable revenue stream.  The key is in understanding the corporate community conversation context.

Update:  Here's Evan Williams and Biz Stone interviewed at the All Things Digital conference.

Garr Reynolds on Simplicity

Garr Reynolds of Presentation Zen recently spoke at the Cytrix Synergy conference on the topic of simplicity. The video of this 45 minute presentation by Garr is only available at the Duarte blog.

Garr's presentation - Simplicity and the art of thinking differently - should be watched with a eye and ear to Matt May's just published In Pursuit of Elegance (read my review) and John Maeda's The Laws of Simplicity. There is a message here that is important. Here's my take.

Simplicity isn't simplistic or superficial, but rather a higher state of development.

To be simple is to see clearly what was obscured by many competing notions and distractions.

To be simple makes it easier to communicate, to connect with others and to create the collaborative organizational structures that we need.

To be simple is to create a more elegant product or service or even an organization.

To be simple is to see and understand what is happening as it is taking place.

To be simple is to know how to resolve issues and conflicts before they rise to the level of crisis.

The influence of Garr Reynolds, Matt May and John Maeda on my thinking is giving me new insight into the nature of leadership. I will share more as I consolidate my thoughts into something coherent and clear. Until then, read them, listen to them, and begin to imagine how simplicity and elegance can become ways your work is recognized by clients and colleagues.

In Addition: Wally Bock links to this NYTimes article about Eduardo Castro-Wright, vice-chairman of WalMart where he speaks about simplicity.

I read something early on when I was in my first or second management role that you can accomplish almost anything in life if you do not care who takes credit for it. So I’ve tried to do more of that. And I’ve tried to do less of the things that make business more complex. I really like simplicity. At the end of the day, retailing - but you could apply this to many other businesses - is not as complicated as we would like to make it. It is pretty logical and simple, if you think about the way that you yourself would act, or do act, as a customer.

Moving to Higher Ground - by Wynton Marsalis - a Leading Questions review

I've been a fan of Wynton Marsalis since the days he played with Art Blakey and his Jazz Messengers. His seven CD set, Live at the Village Vanguard, is one of best jazz albums of the past 25 years. It was with great excitement when I saw that he had published a book on the relation of jazz to life.

Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life is a classic statement of Wynton's philosophy that can be seen all the things he does. It is a book that provides a rationale for why jazz is both an important American art form, but also a way of looking at life that can bring strength and goodness to people, their families and friends, and their communities.

He starts by telling about Danny Barker, a New Orleans musician who led the Fairview Baptist Church Brass Band . The band was formed to provide a way to keep kids off the streets. Here's what Wynton says about Barker's influence on him.

There we met an old man whom I presumed to be Mr. Barker. He was a colorful character, full of fire and stories well told. He loved New Orleans music and he loved kids. That day, he taught us the most profound lesson about playing jazz - and the possibility of a life of self-expression and mutual respect - that I've ever encountered.

... The clarinet players squeaked and squawked. Mr. Barker listened. Then he said, "Everything you do, you got to do with personality. Scoop and bend and slide those notes." They tried to do that.
Mr. Barker said, "That's jazz! Now let's hear clarinets and trumpets on the melody. But when y'all play together, you got to talk to one another . ...

So he was hearing something in us way back then. And he was teaching us something, too: You are creative, whoever you are. Respect your own creativity and respect the creativity and creative space of other people.

That's the book in a nutshell,and it is a powerful message in a time where conflict and division are found in every sphere of life.

One of the hallmarks of the jazz art is the ability of musicians to improvise. It is a way to be creative with what the situation brings you. He describes the musicians that came to his house as a child, men who were friends of his family, a noted New Orleans musician and teacher.

It seemed to me that all of these people knew one another or at least had some type of connection. For all their hard, profane talk, there was an unusual type of gentleness in the way they treated one another. Always a hug upon greeting and - from even the most venerated musicians - sometimes a kiss on the cheek. A natural ease with those teetering on the edge of sanity. A way of admonishing but not alienating those who might have drug problems. Always the feeling that things in our country, in our culture, in our souls, in the world, would get better.  And beyond that, the feeling that this mysterious music would someday help people see how things fit together: segregation and integration, men and women, the political process, even the stock market.

That's why these were still confident, optimistic men. Even though they were broke and misunderstood , sometimes difficult of personality, sometimes impaired by a too intense encounter with mind-altering substances and trapped in a culture that was rapidly moving away from professional levels of musicianship, romantic expression, and the arts in general, they still believed in the value of this jazz they played and still understood that their job was inventing music - and making sense of it with one another.

They improvised.

Now, the ability to improvise - to make up things that could get you out of a tight spot - well, everyone needed to know how to do that, even if it was just coming up with the right words at the right time. I thought there must be something to this improvised music. I needed to learn more about it. And hanging around jazz musicians was a great education for a nine- or ten-year-old because they told great stories and they knew how to listen. That was their way, talking and listening, listening and talking.

What I hear in this description of his childhood is a way for people to relate to one another in an open, respectful way. Creativity, improvisation and human community is a process of listening, sharing, adapting and making something happen that elevates life.

I've been a lover of jazz since the early 70's. I found in it a life that was missing in other music. It was the experience of seeing musicians communicating on the bandstand that most impressed me. I was fortunate to see the Modern Jazz Quartet during their last tour. Each transition in their songs seemed to come effortlessly and without words being shared. The music that each of these men played was a conversation shared between them. They knew what the others were saying, and I was in awe of that level of connection.

Wynton helps us understand jazz and what it is like to play it. It isn't a dry, academic text, but rather a story told by one of the top jazz artists of our time. He writes about the language of jazz, which I find fascinating, on the importance of the blues to the music and to life, and he tells stories about some of the jazz greats of the past.

Here's what he says about some of them.

Louis Armstrong

... the deepest human feeling and the highest musical sophistication.

... a celebration of the freedom to be yourself. He always knew and loved himself. He embraced the things he was most proud of, like his artistry ...
Louis Armstrong never tried to be someone else. His playing is free of artifice. It's pure substance. ...

Louis Armstrong's sound has the power to heal. His playing is wisdom and forgiveness. ... That feeling's in all of Louis Armstrong's music, that warmth and familiarity and the feeling that whatever you say, he will understand it - and he will understand it from your point of view.

John Coltrane

'Trane is perseverance. His development demonstrates the unquestionable value of hard work and dogged persistence.

The fourth movement of the quartet's masterpiece, A Love Supreme, is a written prayer ... "He breathes through us so gently and yet so completely, " that to me, sums up what Coltrane was all about. He was a preacher, an exhorter. He wants to convert you through his horn. But for all his fire, he is never frantic, never rushing; he is always relaxed and certain. Something in his sound touches us with its depth and compassion, its sheer beauty - a loftiness. It's irresistible. He is so earnest you want to cry.
People love Coltrane.

'Trane went out, far out into interstellar space. His discoveries were very personal. His music became pure energy. Many of his discoveries got lost in an abstract cosmos of expression and never found their way home. But Coltrane himself is remembered as a master saxophonist, a genius at integrating the music of other cultures, a hyper-harmonically-sophisticated bluesman and an earnest spiritual seeker. He was all those things and more.

Thelonius Monk

... had the sound of the church in his playing, and he had the spiritual inevitability that comes only to somebody who knows the depth of human soul. It made him at once wise and childlike, a rare combination in a full-grown man. Children don't usually sort through things to remove the painful truth. Monk gave you that kind of cut-to-the-bone honesty with the oversight of the genius.

He had another kind of virtuosity: getting notes to bend and creak and moan. His style was neither old-fashioned nor modern.

... he looked at things - from the opposite side.
Somebody would ask him, "What's happening, Monk?"
"Everything is happening all the time, man."

Wynton also writes about Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Billy Holiday and Miles Davis, among others. Frequently, on his radio show, In the Swing Seat, on Sirius/XM radio, he talks about these shapers of the jazz art form. Part of his his greatest is his love and respect for these artists who came before him.

Wynton ends his book with an exploration for That Thing with No Name - human creativity.

The creativity of our fellow citizens is all around us - in their dress, language, lifestyle, in so many combinations of things. You don't have to earn your creativity - you're born with it. All you have to do is tend to it and unleash it. Every human being on earth is given the gift to create, and that creativity manifests itself in trillions of ways.There are no laws or rules. Creativity is unruly. Like a dream - you can't control what comes to you. You only control what portion you choose to tell.

This is the message of jazz to us average folk. We have something within us to share, create, and bring goodness to the world. You don't have to be a superstar performer to do this.

In the simplest and most essential context, creativity and innovation reiterate the importance of soul. They are, separately and together, an expansion of feeling and a supreme expression of our humanity. We have an artistic imperative to understand and reengage creativity and innovation, not merely as tools for economic growth but as tools for democracy and accomplished citizenship. We have a culture imperative to find common ground with even our firercest competitors ... and to play with integrity.

It is this larger perspective, not just the quality of his music, that makes Wynton Marsalis one of the great human beings of our time. He has received a lot of criticism for his outspoken celebration of the tradition of jazz. Without him, our world would be greatly empoverished culturally.  He spends a lot of time helping children and young people learn to find their creative expression through jazz.

Moving to a Higher Ground is a manifesto about the importance of jazz to our world today. As a long time jazz listener, I very much agree, and celebrate this fine book.  Just to complete this little tribute to him, here's a brief video of Wynton at the Harriet Tubman Charter School playing Buddy Bolden's Blues.

Leadership: Texas Hold'Em Style - by Harvey & Foster - A Leading Questions review

There are many different kinds of leadership books in the marketplace. The most  prevalent kind are books written by business school academics and biographies of leaders. Each has their value, but for practicality, the majority do not translate well into practice. Then there are books that are written by practitioners. This is what I found when I came across Andrew J. Harvey and Raymond E. Foster's Leadership: Texas Hold'em Style (www.pokerleadership.com).

I've played poker a few times. I own a copy of The Cincinnati Kid. I've watched some expert players play. None of this qualifies me as an expert on poker. However, I do find it a fascinating game. So, when I saw that two former law enforcement officers had written a book on leadership from the perspective of poker, I was definitely intrigued.

The authors quote David Moschella near the beginning of the book.

Industry executives and analysts often mistakenly talk about strategy as if it were some kind of chess match. But in chess, you have just two opponents; each with identical resources, and with luck playing a minimal role. The real world is much more like a poker game, with multiple players trying to make the best of whatever hand fortune has dealt them. ..."

He is correct that leadership is like a poker game where the leader has to have the situational awareness to understand what is happening, and know how to respond so as to not squander his or her advantage.

Leadership Texas Hold'em Style is organized around 52 distinct leadership topics, each represented by one card in a standard card deck. The chapters are brief and are built around stories and illustrations of the principles described. This is not a book of theoretical reflection, though there is a lot of theory presented. Instead, it is a book where theories are described in a simple, clear manner.

Here's a sample of quotes where they use the metaphor of poker to explain aspects of leadership.

The poker table changes constantly. If you played every hand exactly the same, you are assured of losing. Your cards change, your bank change and even the people at the table can change. Indeed, not only is every hand different, every game is different. Each table you sit at is composed of players with different skills, different cards and different banks. Like a good leader, the poker player continually adapts to his or her environment and the situation.

...

Poker is fair because fairness is not about outcome, it is about process. Sometimes in poker you get a poor hand, but the process is fair; the cards are shuffled and dealt. Everyone understands the rules and has an equal chance of receiving cards that make a good hand. Poker is fair because everyone understands the rules, they have similar expectations and the rules are applied to all. If you think of fairness as an outcome, then something could only be fair from a particular point of view. In other words, what is fair to you would not necessarily be fair to others. However, if you look at fairness as a process, it becomes clear when something is fair or unfair. Fairness for the leader is about conformity with rules and standards, making impartial judgments based on objective information and treating people equally.

...

It is easy to see why no one would be loyal to the poker player. Between players, the mission at most tables is to defeat each other. But, not at all tables. Poker games fall into two categories - friendly and competitive.  ... The social card game is an expression of loyalty among people.

It is easy to see that poker is an ideal metaphor for the human dimension of leadership. Every leader must be able to read people, understand how they react in adverse and advantageous circumstances, and know when to fight a battle or fold.  After reading this book, I have a deeper appreciation for poker as a game, and a fresh understanding of the complex dynamics of leading.

This was brought home to me in a quote by poker champion Phil Hellmuth, Jr.

Poker is really about reading people. What happens when you bluff? What does it look like when the other guy bluffs? Does he look right, does he look left? Under what circumstances does he fold or call? Poker is about understanding human behavior and managing emotions - yours and the other guy's. That's huge in poker, and it's huge in business.

Leadership Texas Hold'em Style is an excellent introduction to leadership for the person who is not interested in leadership as an academic subject. Harvey and Foster have not dumbed down the theory to make it accessible to everyone. Instead, they illustrate leadership concepts in ways that provide a basis for team discussion and individual understanding. In particular, I recommend the book as an ideal guide to leadership for middle managers and supervisors who need help learning how to manage the human dimension of their role.

The authors have done their homework. Leadership Texas Hold'em Style fills a niche in the leadership literature field that is welcome addition for the practicing leader.

The Blue Sweater - by Jacqueline Novogratz - A Leading Questions review

Our perception of things when we lack physical proximity is often determined by the media we consume. When we come face-to-face with the reality that our perceptions are wrong, and possibly destructive, we need to change the way we think, and what we expect. This truth I believe is at work in our American perceptions of Africa.

For many people in my generation (over 50 years old) our perception of Africa was first formed by watching Tarzan movies that were produced during the 1930s and 1940s. The notion of the noble savage became a staple of Western perception. Africa was a land of romance and adventure and Western colonialism. Today, our perception is far more determined by news accounts of war, poverty, famine and genocide.  The one counter to this perception, at least for me, has come from hearing stories and having interaction with missionaries and African citizens who talk about their work and lives there. It is still a place of romance and adventure, but now, creating a place of hope and health with self-determination is the focus. 

It is from this perception that I came to Jacqueline Novogratz's fascinating book, The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected world. Novogratz is the founder and CEO of the Acumen Fund. Her book is both a memoir and a manifesto. It should be read by everyone who has any sense of connection to places on our planet where people lack the opportunities that you and I take for granted everyday.

She begins her story this way.

They say a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I took mine and fell flat of my face. As a young woman, I dreamed of changing the world. In my twenties, I went to Africa to try and save the continent, only to learn that Africans neither wanted nor needed saving. Indeed, when I was there, I saw some of the worst that good intentions, traditional charity, and aid can produce: failed programs that left people in the same or worse conditions. The devastating impact of the Rwandan genocide on a people I'd come to love shrank my dreams even further. I concluded that if I could only nudge the world a little bit, maybe that would be enough.

But nudging isn't enough. The gap between rich and poor is widening across the world, creating a dire situation that is neither socially just nor economically sustainable. Moreover, my work in Africa also taught me about the extraordinary resilience of people for whom poverty is a reality not because they don't work hard, but because there are too many obstacles in their way.

The Blue Sweater is a book of stories. To tell you one is to possibly miss the importance of the flow of ideas and impressions that build a perception about how to address poverty in the world. She writes early on her experience in Africa,

I finally understood: In order to contribute to Africa, I would have to know myself better and be clearer about my goals. I would have to be ready to take Africa on its own terms, not mine, and to learn my limits and present myself not as a do-gooder with a big heart, but as someone with something to give and gain by being there. Compassion wasn't enough.

I think that was the moment when humility in its truest form - rather than an easy but false humbleness - began to creep in. Until then, I'd been too vested in knowing the answers and in being right. For the first time in my life, being right had nothing to do with being successful or effective. I also began to be more honest about what was happening around me - I couldn't stand all talk without action, and too many expatriates and elite Africans seemed to revel in it. I wanted to work directly with poor women themselves.

The Blue Sweater is the story of her growing into this person. The stories are vivid and engaging. We understand because she is an excellent story teller. And she understands that her own transformation is part of the story, and can become our story.

Jaqueline Novogratz's story is also about the kind of leadership that is needed now in our time.

After more than 20 years of working in African, India, and Pakistan, I've learned that solutions to poverty must be driven by discipline, accountability, and market strength, not easy sentimentality. I've learned that many of the answers to poverty lie in the space between the market and charity and that what is needed most of all is moral leadership willing to build solutions from the perspectives of poor people themselves rather than imposing grand theories and plans upon them.

This is true for all people working in all organizations. Big ideas that are impractical and are not shared by the people who implement them are doomed to failure. Rather, what is needed is leadership that understands how to facilitate the process of idea creation within the context of relationship building. Only from this foundation can the appropriate organizational structures be created to facilitate their success. This is what Acumen and other groups are now doing in Africa and other parts of the world.

The organization that Jacqueline Novogratz created is the Acumen Fund. Here's a brief description of their mission.

Acumen Fund is a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. We seek to prove that small amounts of philanthropic capital, combined with large doses of business acumen, can build thriving enterprises that serve vast numbers of the poor. Our investments focus on delivering affordable, critical goods and services – like health, water, housing and energy – through innovative, market-oriented approaches.

They call this "patient capital." It is so because it is built around quarterly reports, but the sustainability of small centers of commerce and change.

The Blue Sweater is a book about leadership, the kind that is needed today, and what will be known as 21st century leadership in the future.

The entrepreneurs who will help us create the future for all people are individuals who exist in every country on earth. ... They are the ones who see a problem and don't stop working on it until it is solved. They refuse petty ideologies and reject trite assumptions.They balance their passion for change with an ability to get things done. Mostly, they believe fundamentally in the inherent capacity of every human being to contribute.

At the same time, today's most effective leaders have a pragmatic bottom-line orientation that results in focusing on measuring what they accomplish, building institutions that can sustain themselves long after their founders are gone.  They world will not change with inspiration alone; rather it requires systems, accountability, and clear measures of what works and what doesn't. Our most effective leaders, therefore, will strengthen their knowledge of how to build organizations while also having the vision and heart to help people imagine that change is possible in their lives.

Jacqueline Novogratz's story is one of perceptions. What we perceive becomes our reality. What is your perception? Are you open to having it challenged and radically altered? I hope so because if you let yourself be open to a different perception about charity, poverty, Africa, Asia and leadership, you may find your own life deeply enriched and impacted by her story. I highly encourage each of you to read her book and begin to imagine what you can do to encourage this kind of development.

Finally, here is Jacqueline speaking at the TED conference in 2007. It will give you a flavor for what you'll find in the book.

Passages - Vote for Donna in the Intuit Small Business United Contest

My friend Donna von Hoesslin, the proprietor of Betty Belts is a semi-finalist in a  contest sponsored by Intuit. The winner receives a grant of $25,000 to advance their business. 

Donna recently wrote about her story,

This video expresses how one can truly turn a passion (mine is surfing) into a viable business.
I think this video really hits a nerve because the freefall that I experienced when I left Berlin and struck out on my own again is not unlike what many are experiencing today in our economic disaster era with the loss of stability connected to the loss of the status quo on so many levels.

This shift is a time of opportunity.
One CAN create a business based on passion.
There's nothing to lose, really, if you think about it...

Donna has led a fascinating life, and is now creating goodness both within the  surfing community in California, and with those who are environmentally involved in places like Bali.

Please go to the Donna's page at the Intuit contest, watch her video, and rate it for all three options listed there, and leave a comment if you want to.

The voting goes through May 31. Winners will be announced June 4th.

In Pursuit of Elegance - by Matthew E. May - A Leading Questions review

I am now free. Free no longer to be obligated to be complete, comprehensive and without inconsistencies. I am because Matt May has shown me how to live a more elegant life. To live free to let what is missing become what makes me and what I do more interesting, more valuable and ultimately, more elegant.

Matthew May is the author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing. This is a book that presents a view of a world that is so familiar, yet one we've never really seen. It is the one where the things that are missing create the beauty and value that we find in life.

... the transformative idea that lies at the heart of elegance, and at the center of this book: what isn't there can often trump what is.  ... the full power of elegance is achieved when the maximum impact is exacted with the minimum input.

The point of my quest is to answer a single question: What can we discover and learn that might allow us to bring more elegance into our own endeavors?

May describes this perspective through the examination of four aspects of elegance: symmetry, seduction, subtraction, and sustainability.

Seduction lures us into a fascination with an idea or a product by not telling us everything about it. Subtraction improves the quality, cost and speed of delivery to marketplace. And sustainability provides the possibility for lasting value.

It is the aspect of symmetry that I found the most "seductive(?)." After exploring both the art and the science of symmetry, he presents three points that I find provocative.

The first is that symmetry appears in nature.

...symmetry is a fundamental property woven into the fabric of the universe ... What's challenging is that symmetry isn't always readily observable, we don't always know what to look for, and we have a tendency to look at individual part of things, rather than at larger patterns. So we are fooled into thinking we must create symmetry ourselves, usually going straight at the organizational characteristic itself rather than patiently looking for the underlying simplicity that is already in existence. Ever chasing the new idea, we apply our technological prowess to situations when, if we were instead to stop, observe, and think - to stop doing, if only long enough to discern a repetitive pattern - we might be surprised to see that the answer lie just below the surface of what appears to be out of control. You don't need to design what already exists just because you don't immediately recognize its presence. In other words, the challenge or problem we're trying to solve might not always need our help. And if it doesn, understanding the power of symmetry allow us to design better, more elegant solutions.

The second point is illustrated by what is known as the Montana Paradox. In 1995, Montana established "reasonable and prudent" as the standard for highway speeds. Highway fatalities dropped to pre-1975 levels. In 2000, speed limits were reset to comply with the national standards, and high way deaths rose 111%.

What the Montana Paradox reinforces is that by attempting to control what may already be in balance, we can inadvertantly tip things the other way. In the rush to create order and organization, we often get the exact opposite of the intended desired effect. ... Elegance might best be achieved not by demanding compliance to an exhaustive set of centrally mandated, onerously rigid regulations, but from one or two vital agreements, often implicity, that everyone understands and is accountable for, yet that are left open to individual interpretation and variation, the limits of what are set by social context.

The counterintuitive dynamic at work is this: the more we try to control and regulate our risk, the more exposed and at risk we are, because the more protected from hazards we think we are, the less conscious of potential dangers we become. We actually disengage our brains and disconnect from what's happening around us. This can be disastrous.

See there is a pattern emerging here. There is a symmetry and order i the universe that we must discover and adapt to, rather than try to control.  If this isn't obvious, his third point makes it more clear.

It seems safe to say that when you remove certainty and predictability, engagement and awareness rise. The concept of shared space makes that clear. The less stated something is, the more powerful it becomes. Uncertainty and ambiguity can create intrigue, which makes us slow down and think. We don't immediately see the symmetry and order we so desperately seek and that transfixes our attention, draws us in.

Matt May's notion of elegance provides us a fresh way of looking at what we've always seen before us, and yet don't see completely. We don't see the big picture because it is easier to act and add to, and control, and never stop.  To discover elegance is to discover freedom to be genuinely creative, rather than simply productive.

I see ways to apply his perspective already in my own work. In Pursuit of Elegance is a book that I will return to often as a reminder of what I know to be true, but continually need to nudge to recall. To see what is missing is to grasp the elegance that elevates our perception of the world around us.

You can find a free downloadable ChangeThis manifesto by Matt May entitled Creative Elegance that accompanies the publication of In Pursuit of Elegance.

In Addition:

Bob Sutton offers a sterling recommendation for Matt's book. He closes with these words.

... This morning, as I started reading it again, I am having trouble putting it down again because Matt does such a great job of providing a new way of looking at everyday things in life, and making them better. 

To me, that is the best thing that any book can accomplish -- to change the way we think about and travel through life, and to send us down new paths that help us see opportunities and make choices that are better for ourselves and others.

Since reading the book and writing my review, the ideas that Matt presents have increasingly helped me to see what I've been working on for the past ten years in a new light. I hope it will do the same for each of you.

HT: Bill Kinnon for the Bob Sutton link.

In Addition 2: Check out Guy Kawasaki's interview with Matt. Here's a taste.

Question: How do you define elegance?

Answer: Something is elegant if it is two things at once: unusually simple and surprisingly powerful. One without the other leaves you short of elegant. And sometimes the “unusual simplicity” isn’t about what’s there, it’s about what isn’t. At first glance, elegant things seem to be missing something.

Check it out.

Tribes - by Seth Godin - A Leading Questions review

Twenty five years ago, I became fascinated with the field of leadership. Through the experiences I was having, I saw a set of principles and behaviors that are open to everyone. As I began to study and reflect on this phenomenon, I came to the realization that the prevailing notion of leadership was not what I saw it to be. Instead of it being a way for anyone to perform in the role that they have, it was a role that was limited to those at the top of the hierarchies of organizations. It was the triumph of the institution over the individual.

Since then, many fine books have been written about leadership that more accurately describes my first intuition about leading. Each in their own way pays obeisance to the institutional structures that essentially limit the advance of leadership in organizations. At least until now.

I've been reading Seth Godin's marketing books and blog for a long time. What he presents to me, a non-professional marketer, makes sense. I've sought to apply his ideas in my business, and will continue to do so with great benefit. Last year, Seth published a book that marks a shift in the presentation of his ideas. While his other books are certainly books that leaders can benefit from reading, his latest, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us, is his first book that is truly a leadership book.

Let me say upfront that this is the first leadership book in twenty five years of reading them that accurately describes what I see leadership being. From my vantage point, it is the best book on leadership written this century. I'm not waxing hyperbolic. I'm serious in believing that this could be the most important book on leadership you'll read throughout the rest of your professional career. It is so because how you function in your role, wherever you are, can be transformed by applying the lessons Seth offers in his book. Listen to what he has to say.

“A tribe is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. A group needs only two things to be a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate."

"Tribes are about faith – about belief in an idea and in a community. And they are grounded in respect and admiration for the leader of the tribe and for the other members as well.
Do you believe in what you do?  Every day? It turns out that belief happens to be a brilliant strategy.”

“… it only takes two things to turn a group of people into a tribe:
·         A shared interest
·         A way to communicate
The communication can be one of four kinds:
·         Leader to tribe
·         Tribe to leader
·         Tribe member to tribe member
·         Tribe member to outsider
So a leader can help increase the effectiveness of the tribe and its members by
·         Transforming the shared interest into a passionate goal and desire for change;
·         Providing tools to allow members to tighten their communications; and
·         Leveraging the tribe to allow it to grow and gain new members.”

Can you see how this philosophy of leadership can be applied to every job that exists?

Okay, here's the hidden truth about leadership embedded in Seth's book. Leadership is about who we are as people and how we want to live. It isn't primarily about the role that we are to play within an organizational structure. It is about the person we want to be and the legacy we want to leave when our time is over. Listen to what Seth gives as the Elements of Leadership.

"Leaders challenge the status quo.
        Leaders create a culture around their goal and involve others in that culture.
        Leaders have an extraordinary amount of curiosity about the world they're trying to change.
        Leaders use charisma (in a variety of forms) to attract and motivate followers.
        Leaders communicate their vision of the future.
        Leaders commit to a vision and make decisions based on that commitment.
        Leaders connect their followers to one another.
...  If you consider the leaders in your organization or community, you'll see that every one of them uses some combination of these seven elements. You don't have to be in charge or powerful or pretty or connected to be a leader. You do have to be committed."

Leadership is first and foremost about the person we are in relationship with others. It is secondarily the mechanics of leading within organizational structures.

The greatest hurdle every organizational leader has to cross is convincing the rest of the people in the organization to lead. The second hurdle that is parallel in importance is how to create an organizational structure that allows leadership to grow and spread.

Until now, the leadership literature has been an obstacle to fostering a culture of leadership in organizations. Wise CEO's will put this book into the hands of every single employee and tell them go lead. They will fund training that is focused on developing leadership in the lower half of their organizational hierarchy. They will challenge the status quo by turning their business into a leadership machine. CEO's can do it, but it requires them to first absorb Seth's philosophy of leadership into their own personal leadership DNA.

Ten years ago, after 15 years of "studying" leadership, while on horseback in the mountains of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, I heard a voice tell me, "It is time to stop talking about leadership, and lead." The opportunities to lead have been many since then.  I wish I would have had Seth's book ten years ago. It would have been helpful as I began to learn to lead as a whole person, not simply as an idea monger.

The same can happen to you. All it takes is a commitment to build a following around an idea that matters, and the willingness to let people lead from their own passionate commitment to the idea that you share.

Go ahead. Stop thinking about it. Lead. We'll follow.

After I wrote the above, Seth's TED talk on Tribes was released. Here it is.

It's now your turn.

Book Review Week, beginning Monday, May 18

Next week is book review week here at Leading Questions. Here's what I've been reading.

Monday, May 18 - Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us by Seth Godin

Tuesday, May 19 - In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas have Something Missing by Matthew May (publication date)

Wednesday, May 20 - The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap between the Rich and Poor  in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz

Thursday, May 21 - Leadership Texas Hold'em Style by Andrew J. Harvey and Raymond E. Foster

Friday, May 22 - Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life by Wynton Marsalis

A new review will be published each day next week. If you've read the book, please add your own comments.

The Five Eras of the Social Web - Jeremiah Owyang

A simple Twitter post by Doug Lacombe at @techvibes expanded my perception of what social media is about. His post was about Forrester Research's Jeremiah Owyang just published report on the Five Eras of the Social Web.

Doug Lacombe wrote in his Techvibes

Kids these days - they don't even understand handwriting!

When a self described "young Gen Xer" like Jeremiah Owyang (of Forrester Research) tells an anecdote about a Gen Y teacher having trouble relating to her students, Boomers like me better take note.

"Like all kids, they hated homework," commented Owyang "but they loved blogging assignments. This teacher was amazed they couldn't understand her writing on the board - they're used to seeing computer fonts, not cursive. And when they couldn't answer a question, they'd respond 'IDK' - I don't know - like texting."

A half century ago, President Eisenhower said, "Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers." I believe we can now add, "Not all social media people are leaders, but all future leaders will be fully engaged in the social web." And this probably applies to teachers as well.

Forrester Research, through their Groundswell research and book, and the Five Eras of the Social Webb report by Jeremiah Owyang, provides valuable insight for understanding what is happening with social media. Here are diagrams that I find helpful.

The first is the Groundswell scale of social media involvement. Look at this ladder image and answer this question. Where will future leaders find themselves on this scale? Of course it depends on what being a leader will require in the future.

My answer? The future belongs to the Creators. They are leading through the use of their ideas, building network of relationships in the virtual world, and are becoming agents of change. Use this paradigm to understand leadership, the Creators are really the only ones who are going beyond simply showing up and contributing.

Take this picture of the future and add to this Owyang's Five Eras of the Social Web perspective.

The Five Eras of the Social Web
1) Era of Social Relationships: People connect to others and share
2) Era of Social Functionality: Social networks become like operating system
3) Era of Social Colonization: Every experience can now be social
4) Era of Social Context: Personalized and accurate content
5) Era of Social Commerce: Communities define future products and services

Read Jessica Tsai at DestinationCRM.com onOwyang's report.
"The community will take charge," Owyang tells CRM magazine in a one-on-one interview, "and that's going to happen whether or not marketers or brands participate." Social networking, he adds, will only continue to facilitate the power shift toward the consumer.

The shift that is taking place for leaders is huge. Gone is command and control. Now, every leader must truly respond to the marketplace. Smart leaders will take Owyang's report and the Groundswell material are recognition its value for creating the next generation of their organization. If you are not organized to be a community, then you are behind the curve, and it is time to catch up.

The organic “spread” of information

Terry Heaton's subtle turn of phrase captures the most important asset that the internet provides the world - the organic “spread” of information. Terry is writing about Rupert Murdoch's plan to move to a pay model for online content of his fleet of newspapers.

What does this phrase - the organic "spread" of information - mean? Today, if you want to communicate a message, you don't do it with advertising as your primary tool. You spread your message through people who want to share it with people they know.

Last night we went to our neighborhood "listening room" called Feed & Seed. This is an interesting amalgam of concert hall and church. On Friday and Saturday nights, acoustic and bluegrass bands play in this converted hardware and seed store. On Sundays, they do church. The concerts on Friday and Saturday nights are free, and the place has been packed every time we've been. In front of the stage, there's a dance floor, and folks from little children up to a 91year old gentleman (last night) waltz, mountain clog and simply move to the music.

Philip Trees, the pastor and MC, told us last night that he doesn't do any advertising. Word of mouth and a website lets people know whose coming. They ask donations for the band, and they sell snacks to generate a bit of revenue.

Feed and Seed is a success because it offers a great venue for "the organic 'spread' of information" for community and musical enjoyment. How appropriate that an old building that once served the farmers of this once small country crossroads, and is now serving one of the fastest growing communities in North Carolina. Feed and Seed is growing because they are "spreading" in living form their mission to Pray, Love, Care and Help.

I'm convinced that the power of human connection drives "the organic 'spread' of information. Whatever it is you want to communicate, making connections with people in such a way that they want to share it with someone else is the key. The internet is a tool for this to happen. It doesn't replace but facilitates the value of this human connection.

Quick Takes: Six Tips for Remote Presentations - Nancy Duarte

After almost 14 years of consulting, there is only one need that everyone of my clients has had. What is it? Better communication.

Nancy Duarte has created a very, very helpful guide to effective presentations given  remotely.

Take a few minutes and watch it.  Take notes, and bookmark it for future reference. It is basic stuff, but that's what often gets missed. Then go practice it.

Nancy is the author of the excellent guide to presentations - Slide:ology. 

You can watch her talk about the book here.

Here's what I'm doing in response her Six Tips presentation.

I'm sending the link to friends. After they have watched it and responded back to me, I'm suggesting that we create a group to help one another learn how to master these skills. Presentations really shouldn't be created in isolation. I think of them as feature films that require a high level of collaboration to make them work.

Friendship Matters

Seth Godin asks an author an important question.

 ..."are you writing this for strangers or friends?"

He follows with this insight.

You need to treat friends differently at every step along the way. First, don't confuse the moments you're supporting them or connecting with them with the moments when you are doing business. Second, understand that the most powerful win is when your friends tell their friends about you. This is worth 1000 times more than you talking about yourself.

This is a bigger question than simply whether you are selling to strangers or friends. It is a wholesale change in how we think about the impact of our businesses.

Until very recently, numbers ruled. Technology is changing that. Now, the average person can have access to as many people as the President, if they understand what the game really is.

Numbers are no longer the most important factor in business. Now, trust, respect, integrity and public perception have become much more important.

If you are perceived as using Twitter to grow numbers, you'll be shunned as an opportunist. However, if you are perceived as a person of influence because you are both generous and wise, then your numbers will grow and they will be sustainable because these people want to be your friend.

Here's the real secret, it isn't enough to be a good person that people like. You have to be this person in conversation. Sal Bhanji responding to Seth's post gets it.

Suddenly with tools such as blog, Twitter, Facebook, rss feed etc reaching far more than these numbers is easy, less expensive and tempting. But none of the old tricks would work even if you manage to reach these numbers. As this is a total different game all together.  The new tools require you to have a conversation and not force things upon people.  Start having a conversation with your prospective market and make friends long before you offer your service.

If you still need a way to understand what's happening, consider this.

You go on vacation to Yellowstone National Park. You have a great time, and return home. What do you talk about? The cost, the miles driven, the gas used? No. You talk about  the experience you had with one another.

You tell stories of the agitated bison that came up to your car(true story). You tell of the forest fire (true story), the snow fall in August (true), and meeting FBI director Robert Mueller at dinner (also true). You tell of the people you met, the sights you saw and the surprises along the way. You share your experiences. You recommend places to stay and restaurants to visit. And you share what you learned about life, friendship, family and the importance of each. You tell me this, and I want to go to Yellowstone. Every year. And go with you.

Please don't confuse friendship with numbers. Friendship is giving, sharing, caring, sacrifice, honor, and gratitude. If you can be this person with 10,000 people then you have a chance of doing some remarkable things.  You can have an impact far beyond the product you are selling.

How Entrepreneurs Think

Bill Taylor, one of my favorite idea guys, writes about the difference between MBA thinking and entrepreneurial thinking.

... as the economy experiences the most deep-seated changes in decades, maybe it's time to change our minds about what kinds of people are best-equipped to become business leaders. Is our fascination with the comings and goings of MBAs as obsolete as our lionization of investment bankers and hedge-fund managers? Is it time to look elsewhere for the "best and the brightest" of what business has to offer?

My answer is an emphatic Yes! As a linear, sequential thinking, I know that nothing is like that any more. We are more like the Octopus ride at the amusement part with four arms and three tentacles per arm all whirling around never quite knowing who's in charge or where we are going. It is enough to make one nauseous.

Taylor's perspective is supported by the work of Saras Sarasvathy research into how entrepreneurs think, called "effectuation."

Effectual reasoning, however, does not begin with a specific goal. Instead, it begins with a given set of means and allows goals to emerge contingently over time from the varied imagination and diverse aspirations of the founders and the people they interact with.

I find this such a relief, because I've found that over the years, my planning process have changed to become more effectuation-like.

It is one thing to have a vision for the future. To have some sense of where you are going is good. The reality is that most visions are incomplete, moving targets. They are all based on current data or past experience. What Sarasvathy is showing us in her research is that the future is gain through adaptation. We take what we have to work with, and adapt to find the best possible outcome. This is effectual thinking.

Bill Taylor describes the difference that Sarasvathy sees between entrepreneurial thinking and the kind developed in business schools.

The difference in mindset, Sarasvathy concludes, boils down to a different take on the future. "Causal reasoning is based on the logic, To the extent that we can predict the future, we can control it," she writes. That's why MBAs and big companies spend so much time on focus groups, market research, and statistical models. "Effectual reasoning, however, is based on the logic, To the extent that we can control the future, we do not need to predict it." How do you control the future? By inventing it yourself — marshaling scarce resources, understanding that surprises are to be expected rather than avoided, reacting to them fast.

This way of thinking is much more concrete and present-centered. It is opportunistic and willing to take risks, and overcome them when they fail. I encourage you to read Sarasvathy's article, What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial? Share it with colleagues and friends and start to talk about how to think effectually right now.

Sir Ken Robinson on education and creativity

Get comfortable and spend 20 minutes watching this TED video of Sir Ken Robinson.

Regardless who you are, within you there is something that we may call passion.

The expression of your passion is where your creativity is discovered.

Don't tell yourself that you are not creative. Don't do it.

All you need is a context and a structure to support your creative expression. That's all.

HT: Nancy Duarte

Resolving Complex Issues Simply

I'm involved in a process of listening and learning about a local organization that is very complex. As I've talked with a wide cross section of people, and this has been going on for over a decade, there is one theme that continues to resonate.

Working within this complex organization are a group of professionals who provide their services on a contractual basis. Over the years, I've been told that the relationship between the organization and these professionals is not healthy. Based on what I've seen, heard and encountered, this a well-functioning organization at the top of its class in its industry. I'm very impressed with the people whom I've met who work there. They are big picture people who see how it impacts the daily work as leaders. That is a rare commodity in today's business world.

I'd like to use this scenario about relationships of professional service providers working within a larger complex organizational system to make a point about how to resolve complex issues simply. Let's use my Circle of Impact diagram as a guide to understanding the real nature of the problem and its solution.

The problem as it continually gets portrayed to me is a Relationship problem. However, if you really listen to what they are saying, two other perceptions emerge.

The organization and the professional group do not share the same perception of what their mission is. A Mission is an Idea that becomes the rationale for how we organize our businesses. If we have competing conceptions of what our mission is then we are going to have conflict about how we Structure our organization.

The Relationship problem, therefore, is also a Idea and an Organizational Structure problem.

Within our scenario, the group of professional service providers work within the structure of the larger organization. The issue is not simply, what should our financial and operational agreement be. Those issues are more easily resolved. The deeper issues are ones of values and mission.

Based on what I've learned, the differences in their individual conception of mission become less distinct when viewed from the perception of what their shared Impact should be. Ultimately, they both want high quality service provided to their clients.  If this conception is too general a Vision, or not clear in terms of how they organize their work and relationships to achieve it, then the problems will persist.

How do you resolve such a complicated scenario?

It starts with the relationship. Establish respect and trust, and work from there. If there is no respect, then mistrust grows. If there is no trust, then division also grows. And the shared values that matter erode. While every issue has a relational, conceptual and organizational component to it, resolution begins with resolving the relationship question.

There is one additional ingredient to add. It is important that leaders structure their organizations so that issues get resolved where the solution will be implemented. If you don't then the issue rises up through the structure to become a crisis that requires intervention, not simply resolution. We can achieve this through training supervisors and managers to equip the people they lead to resolve issues before they grow. The Circle of Impact can help make this easier. I just takes some training to know how.

Preview of Book Review Week - May 18-22

I believe it was General Eisenhower who said, "Not every reader is a leader, but ever leader is a reader." It is important to read books that broaden our perspective, challenge our assumptions and give us direction for our lives and work.

For a change, I've decided to do a book review week here at Leading Questions. Here's the schedule.

Monday, May 18 - Tribes: We Need You To Lead Us by Seth Godin

Tuesday, May 19 - In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas have Something Missing by Matthew May (publication date)

Wednesday, May 20 - The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap between the Rich and Poor  in an Interconnected World by Jacqueline Novogratz

Thursday, May 21 - Leadership Texas Hold'em Style by Andrew J. Harvey and Raymond E. Foster

Friday, May 22 - Moving to Higher Ground: How Jazz Can Change Your Life by Wynton Marsalis

Each one of these books has perspective to offer for the leader. I look forward to sharing with you insights that I've gained from them.

Being Authentic in Inauthentic Times

At Lolly Daskal's weblog, Elizabeth King introduces a four part series on authenticity with these words.

We find ourselves in an age of personal branding and marketing, of relentless social media and networking, of the end of privacy and the promulgation of a self-crafted identity. An accepted social construct has emerged that allows for endless calls to forget your fears, to embrace your dreams, to listen to your inner voice. And yet in the midst of this media circus we often punctuate the conversation with desperate cries demanding, both for ourselves and of our audience, authenticity.

As the information age eclipsed and replaced the industrial age, it didn't mean that we stopped manufacturing things. Instead we started manufacturing our identities, or as Elizabeth so aptly describes, "a self-crafted identity." The real crisis is in knowing who we truly are, knowing our authentic self, and living an authentic life as a result.

Here are my three suggestions for being authentic in inauthentic times.

1. Stop being so self-conscious. Authentic people do not go around projecting their self-important personality on everyone they encounter.  The healthiest client that I've ever had is totally unaware of why they are healthy. Their organization is growing in all the ways that that their industry is not. After spending a lot of time with them, I concluded that they lack a contrived self-importance masked as a corporate brand. You cannot imagine how refreshing it is to work with people who feel no need to tell you how important their organization is. They just love it.

Self-conscious self-importance accounts for most of the trauma that leaders face. Every decision has to be calculated to factor in the "personalization" factor. By this, I mean, someone is interpreting every decision you make and action you take as a personal attack. It is all a part of this culture of self-promotion that is fed by social media and the media in general.

If you want to be an authentic person, stop telling us that you are. Either you are or not, and telling us only confirms that fact that you aren't. Authentic people don't have to tell you they are.

2. Virtual identities are not real identities, and virtual relationships are mimics of real relationships.  I've had a number of discussions about social media with people who want to convinced me that their online relationships are better and more real than what they encounter with people where they live.  The virtual and local are not different versions of the same thing. They are totally different social contexts. In the virtual world, lived through social media, the measure of a person is in how they use words. The better you are at expressing yourself, the more likely the virtual world is a place of comfort and affirmation.

The real world of local communities measures people by what they do, by their actions. If my neighbor's dog barks all night, and he doesn't do anything about it, then I have a problem with my neighbor. If I don't complete a job on time, it reflects poorly on my ability to do what I commit to doing. The real world is a place of action.

When we bring the world of action into the virtual, as when we use social media to accomplish tasks more easily, then the real and virtual co-mingle in a highly beneficial way. I'm heavily involved in social media, so I don't see the platform as the issue. It is a tool that facilitates human intention. If my intention is to live a narcissistic life of self-promotion, then social media is the right place to do it.

This notion goes to the heart of Elizabeth's introduction.

The problem is, though, if you’ve been living in the United States in the past sixty years ... you’ve been living in a largely inauthentic reality. We live on inauthentic mortgages and credit lines based on inauthentic incomes. We eat mass produced foods that are mere shadows of their original, artisinal selves ...

Our families are more broken than ever and those families live in homes that hope to replicate the great Georgian plantations and the Cape Cod lifestyles of 150 years ago ... We “stage” our homes. We lock our doors.

We botox, dye, and tuck every square inch of ourselves. We binge and purge. We mull over our personal brands. If we stray from the “brand message”, we perceive that we compromise our income-building opportunities. We filter.

And yet we grandstand about authenticity. So? So the problem with authenticity is that it asks that we actually be exactly what we claim to be.

Relationships are hard because we are not personal brands. We are complex beings whose emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical selves are in a constant dynamic of change. We are social beings who find health, not in self-projection, but in self-giving, in actions of creating and sacrifice.

If you want to be seen as authentic, then be a giver, not a taker. And when you do, you'll find that the virtual becomes more important because it enhances what you can do in the local world where you live and work.

3. Don't tell me, show me your authenticity. Look at your ad copy. If you are having to use superlative words to enhance what you say you do, then you aren't being authentic. When we have to modify common, simple speech with lots of adjectives and adverbs to communicate who we are, then we are not clear about what it means to be authentic.

If you want to be perceived as an authentic person, then act as one. Don't tell me that you are an authentic leader. I'll know it by the impact of your actions. I'll know it by what people who in no way benefit from saying so, tell me that you are an authentic person. I'll know it because you'll stand out in the virtual world as a voice of reason and wisdom.

If you live this kind of authentic life, then three things are possible. Your life will be hard because we live in inauthentic times. You'll find peace because you'll find yourself in the struggle to be the person who is authentic in every sense. And you'll find relationships forming with other people who seek to be authentic in all they do. They exist. Just not on TV.

Text Tonic - Innovation in therapeutic care

If you read my blog often, you know that I like innovation. People who take a standard sort of thing, and then do something really different with it to make it better, more useful. The other day, I got a Twitter follower notice saying TextTonic was following me. I thought, "What is TextTonic?" So, I opened theTwitter's profile, and found innovator, Mandy KIoppers.

Here's the description of what she does.

Welcome to our innovative service that allows you to travel with a ‘Pal in your pocket’ - text us a question/concern for professional advice! A Problem shared is a problem halved. We’ll help you improve your personal power. Someone is here for you . . .
Please understand you have free will. This advice is given only in the realm of personal growth and self-help. This is not to be considered a substitute for professional therapy or counseling. Text Tonic can offer you another view or second opinion on issues you face in life. Objectivity can hold vast wisdom! I hope Text Tonic can be of service to you and help you until you find happier times. Mandy

In a world where the virtual is growing in importance, why not add a text based counseling service. May be the bridge between a problem and a solution that is found.  I was so intrigued by this idea, I contacted Mandy and ask if I could send her some questions to post here. The following interview we did by email.

1.    In a nutshell, what is Text Tonic? This is your elevator speech.

Text Tonic enables Mental Health Professionals to be more accessible to the public by offering a 24hour interactive text-based advice service. Text the word “Advice” and a brief description of the problem you are having to 81812 and a Psychologist or Life Coach will reply as soon as possible with advice(usually within two hours).We live in an instant-gratification society and this service can be with you every moment of the day, as long as you have a mobile with you. It is the first one of its kind in the UK and is the only interactive service available in this format. The website is: http://www.text-tonic.co.uk

2.    Where did you get this idea? What was the original idea, and did it evolve over time to be what it is now?

I was stuck in hospital at the time when I first thought of the idea and I was going through a break-up at the same time...as the saying goes “it doesn’t rain it pours”! I had been forwarding texts from my ex-boyfriend to my girlfriends for feedback and realised how lucky I was to have sympathetic friends who were willing to offer advice. Even so, I felt a bit of a burden to them and found myself wishing there was an objective text-based service where I could get advice, forward texts and wallow in self pity privately. So the initial idea was for people to forward texts for a second opinion and then expanded into offering general advice and support on life’s challenges as well.

3.    What is the one thing you are find people need when they contact you? Are they looking for a specific answer to a question, affirmation of themselves, validation of their own thought process or just curious and like to ask questions?

There’s a mixture of reasons for people contacting Text-Tonic. Many of the questions revolve around relationships and lack of confidence/self esteem. Others want their thought processes validated and some just seem to enjoy the idea of having access to someone for general advice – kind of like a constant companion in your pocket! Sadly it seems that communities/families are becoming more fragmented as globalisation steadily increases and this type of service fills a need for those people who feel they need to show that they are ‘together’ and in control of their lives yet underneath do not feel quite as confident. They have access to advice and support that is completely confidential.

4.    Who are the people that contact you? Do some of them become clients or do they remain more anonymous?

Due to the nature of Text-Tonic most people remain anonymous. Text-Tonic is fully regulated by an organisation here in the UK called PhonePay Plus. Text-Tonic’s concept had to go before a Tribunal where they investigated staff’s qualifications, checked that the advertising was within legal limits and also made sure there were precautions in place for texters who might become addicted. Each time we send an answer it costs the user £1.50. Because of this, the user is reminded when they spend £10, £20 and once they have spent £30 we need to end the session for that day. This system doesn’t really allow for people to become clients. However we are not averse to clients seeing us on a private basis but that is rare as we usually refer users onto to other professionals for ongoing indepth therapy. At present we have more women than men contacting us but that is slowly changing. Many men I have spoken to have said they welcome this type of service as they often lack a good support network and most say it isn’t possible to talk to their male friends about problems they may be facing.

5.    Could you give a couple stories about the difference you made using this social media tool?

I once had a young woman contact me, she was still living at home with her parents and was not getting on with her step-father. She felt very trapped and misunderstood and I offered her possible ways to try improve her relationship. She tried these out regularly for a week or two and the situation at home improved tremendously. I asked her to stop and think before reacting, count to ten, whatever she had to do not to react impulsively when she didn’t like something. As a result her parents saw a newfound maturity in her and adjusted their behaviour as well. I told her that “you teach people how to treat you” and that by altering her behaviour it would start a new pattern of behaviours.

A woman contacted me because she was in an abusive relationship and did not know where to turn. I put her in touch with a well known charity called Women’s Aid and slowly but surely she began to get her life back together. She used to text me as this was the only possible form of communication that worked when he was around. She received regular tips, pep talks and support silently and she didn’t feel as alone in what she was experiencing.

6.    Is this a technique that you see other professional counselors being able to use?

Perhaps, but I think that is still a long way off. There has been resistance to this idea because it is so new but with modern technology constantly changing I think it is important to keep up and adapt accordingly. The knowledge I draw on for this particular service comes from Positive Psychology, Cognitive-Behavioural therapy and brief solution-focused interventions. Those are the most suited to this kind of service.

7.  Last question, as psychologist, what do you see as the benefits and limitations of the virtual relationships formed using social media.  For the benefits, what are people gaining that more traditional forms of relating are not providing. As for limitations, what do you recommend people do to find balance in their social interactions online.

 This service in no way replaces traditional face-to-face counselling but is still extremely useful and helpful in its capacity to lessen anxiety and stress for users. Some people prefer typing their problems to a professional as they say they feel timid about having to speak to someone and they feel more in control when texting. Others have said they feel tongue-tied and feel even more anxious at the thought of having to speak to a stranger. Texting is less personal in many ways and that works for a lot of people. It is also incredibly mobile and is constantly available which many find reassuring. You can be on a crowded train, in a bar/pub/restaurant, in a library and you can still be communicating privately – it’s a very versatile method of communicating.I envisage being able to record quick tips and send these to people’s mobiles – visual images as well or short video clips (WAP technology) in the future. In the future downloads will be available on the website and the website will have all necessary information on health, beauty, life style and mental health issues. I also plan to provide daily thoughts for those who would like an inspirational quote to start their day. Without exception, everyone I have asked has said they need more cheer in their lives and more positivity and if I can offer that – excellent.

Balance is key in everything though and despite all the advantages of interacting online/using technology it is still important to connect with others and maintain all types of interacting skills with others. Identify the positives within each form of interacting and use them to your advantage!

Text Tonic is like many innovations. If fits into a previous unrealized gap in an already existing product or program. Being able to provide on-the-spot advice is really valuable. Most of us who provide counseling or consulting services let our clients know that we are always available to them. I want my clients to know that I'm responsive to their needs. This is the simple idea behind Text Tonic.

Mandy's service is only operating in Great Britain. You can also catch Mandy at her blog and on YouTube talking about abusive relationships.

Stockdale on integrity

Twenty five years ago or so, I was introduced to the writings of James Stockdale, a decorated Navy pilot, and the highest ranking prisoner of war during the Vietnam conflict. His story, told in parallel with his wife, Sybil, In Love & War, is a startling look into what Stockdale and other POWs experienced.

Stockdales story was also told by Jim Collins in his book, Good To Great and the excerpts can be found on his website, here.

In 1978, Stockdale published in The Atlantic Monthly, The World of Epictetus, an article about his experiences. Here are few quotes.

Integrity is one of those words which many people keep in that desk drawer labeled “too hard.” It’s not a topic for the dinner table or the cocktail party. You can’t buy or sell it. When supported with education, a person’s integrity can give him something to rely on when his perspective seems to blur, when rules and principles seem to waver, and when he’s faced with hard choices of right or wrong. It’s something to keep him on the right track, something to keep him afloat when he’s drowning; if only for practical reasons, it is an attribute that should be kept at the very top of a young person’s consciousness.

...

The linkage of men’s ethics, reputations, and fates can be studied in even more vivid detail in prison camp. In that brutally controlled environment a perceptive enemy can get his hooks into the slightest chink in a man’s ethical armor and accelerate his downfall. Given the right opening, the right moral weakness, a certain susceptibility on the part of the prisoner, a clever extortionist can drive his victim into a downhill slide that will ruin his image, self-respect, and life in a very short time.
There are some uncharted aspects to this, some traits of susceptibility which I don’t think psychologists yet have words for. I am thinking of the tragedy that can befall a person who has such a need for love or attention that he will sell his soul for it. I use tragedy with the rigorous definition Aristotle applied to it: the story of a good man with a flaw who comes to an unjustified bad end. This is a rather delicate point and one that I want to emphasize.

...

How can we educate to avoid these casualties? Can we by means of education prevent this kind of tragedy? What we prisoners were in was a one-way leverage game in which the other side had all the mechanical advantage. I suppose you could say that we all live in a leverage world to some degree; we all experience people trying to use us in one way or another. The difference in Hanoi was the degradation of the ends (to be used as propaganda agents of an enemy, or as informers on your fellow Americans), and the power of the means (total environmental control including solitary confinement, restraint by means of leg-irons and handcuffs, and torture). Extortionists always go down the same track: the imposition of guilt and fear for having disobeyed their rules, followed in turn by punishment, apology, confession, and atonement (their payoff). Our captors would go to great lengths to get a man to compromise his own code, even if only slightly, and then they would hold that in their bag, and the next time get him to go a little further.

I suspect that for many people, their day to day experience in the corporate world is not far emotionally from the traumas experienced by Stockdale and his fellow prisoners. The constant scrutiny for weakness, of the chink in the armor, the slightest sense of unwillingness to do what is asked, creates an environment of constant threat.  These highly stressful environments, made all the more so by economic crisis, are tests of our integrity.

The most valuable asset that we share with ourselves and the world is our integrity.  It is what gives us strength and hope. It is what establishes our influence and credibility with others. We are respected foremost because of our integrity.

In these highly stressful times, integrity is a topic worth having long discussions about, and to do so in conversation with Admiral Stockdale. I encourage you to share his article  with friends, family and colleagues. You can also find his other published writings referenced here.

Quick Takes: Steve Cunningham on Clay Shirky's "Hear Comes Everybody."

If you haven't read Clay Shirky's Hear Comes Everybody, watch this short video review by Steve Cunningham.

I'm interested in what you think? What's missing here? I'm curious what you think.

HT: Monika Hardy

"Hello, I'm Mister Ed" - Listening to Wisdom of Horses

Growing up in the 60's, I got kidded a lot by friends because of a popular sit com called, "Mister Ed." It was silly show about an architect, Wilbur Post, whose office was in the horse barn of his horse, "Ed." Mr. Ed and Wilbur talked to each other. And often Ed's wisdom resolved some bone-headed decision that Wilbur made.

Ten years ago our family began to spend our vacations on horseback. The relationship between horse and rider is a personal one. Some horses automatically don't like you. It is intuitive. Others find an immediate connection. I rode Cesar for several summers.  He'd take me across narrow trails on ridge tops, swim in the Snake River and gallop around a dried up pond bed. I always felt safe on him. Even when our guide's horse fell right in front of us one day, he handled it like a champ. I learned a lot riding with him.

Jay Koch has taken listening to horses to a new level. He has written a splendid ebook called, 10 Leadership Secrets Whispered by Horses.  I recommended it highly.

Here are a couple of the secrets.

Secret #1: You can lead with force, fear, and intimidation, but eventually, you'll get bucked off.
Running a business, or being in any leadership position, for that matter, is a lot like riding a horse. A horse is bigger than you are. If you are leading fifty people, they are bigger than you are. It is possible to handle a horse with force, fear, and intimidation, but eventually one of two things will happen. Either the horse will shut down and not perform, or he will buck you off. The same thing would happen if you are leading people. If you continually tried to bully them, they would stop working for you, or they will buck you off and find another leader.

Secret #5: The More Quietly You Ask, The Better They Pay Attention
One day I was teaching Sharkie, a Percheron/Appaloosa cross mare, how to drop her head on command. If a horse mistrusts you, she will keep her head high. As you develop more trust, she will relax and drop her head more readily. While I was trying to teach Sharkie this task, she taught me an important lesson about asking quietly and politely.

Secret #7: Followers Need Structure
One of the primary functions of a good leader is to provide an environment where not only the goals and objectives are clear, but the limits and restrictions are as well. People need to know they have enough freedom to do their jobs, but the limitations can be a comfort as well. If there is no deadline for a job to get done, the job can seem amorphous and disquieting. A deadline helps define and focus the project.

Jay has written a wise guide to leadership. You can hear an interview with him here. If you know horse people, send a link to Jay's ebook, they will appreciate your thoughtfulness.

Creativity for creating impact

The changes that confront us require us to think in new ways. We need to think creatively about the development of our businesses, as if we are starting over.

Even if our business is a staple of every other business, we need to begin thinking differently. Regardless of what we do, the demand for us to be creative in approaching every aspect of our organizations is growing with greater urgency.  Let's look at your business for a few minutes.

How to be creative in a time of great change.
First, download my Impact Leadership guides to help you follow along. The image here is a simplified version of my Circle of Impact. The focus is on creating impact, which means making a difference or creating change. In order to understand the true results of your company, you must ask what is the impact of all three of these areas.

What is the Impact of our Ideas?

What is the Impact of our Relationships?

What is the Impact of our Organizational Structure?

These are the Three Dimensions of Leadership. They are the three areas where leaders must take initiative in order to be effective in creating impact.

The majority of the people I know think their business primarily functions within the Organizational Structure dimension. This is where all their energy is focused.

However, what I've found is that organizations are not just the activities of business, but also Ideas and Relationships. It is important to be creative in each of these areas.

Ask simple questions to reveal the complex dynamics at work here.  Let's start with one of the dimensions.

Being creative within the Organizational Structure dimension? 
Ask the following questions. Let's do this in real time, right now. Answer the questions. Write down your thoughts as we go through this little exercise.

What is our mission for creating impact?

Can you do so in one sentence? If not, the Idea of what your mission is needs clarification. If you can't state simply what your mission's impact is - what difference you make - how can you organize your business to achieve it?

Ask, then,

What is our mission as a business?

In what way does this mission make a difference?

How is our business structured to fulfill this mission? Are they compatible?

Write something down so you capture what you are thinking right now. There are no perfect answers, only the perception of your business as it exists right now.

Measuring Impact
We make assumptions about what a business is based on past experience. We assume that a business is a set of activities that we repeat to produce results. And the easiest way to determine results is with numbers. It is much harder to measure our business' results by determining the impact of our business. Even with these simple guides that I've given you, it is hard. Being creative is hard work.

Here's how to distinguish between measuring results by numbers and by impact.

You go on vacation. When you return, you don't talk numbers, you talk about the experiences you had. You show your pictures of beautiful scenery and happy times with family and friends. You don't show your receipts from the hotel or gas card. You know how much your vacation cost. The numbers matter, but they don't tell what is most important. Your experiences are the measure of whether your vacation's purpose (mission) has achieved its impact.  A great vacation impacts you and the relationships you have with the people who went with you. That difference matters and is why you will go on vacation again.

The experiences you had on vacation were personal taking place in Relationships. The measure of impact is partially determined by the values that you share.

For example, if you all are rock climbers, then you share the values of physical challenge, and if your vacation doesn't include rock climbing, your experience is probably less than what it could have been. Values matter in determining the difference being achieved.

What are the values that matter to you and to the people connected to your business?

How do those values impact how you have organized your business?

Write this down.

For example, if you want to put people first in your business, which many businesses say is a core value, then how do you organize to insure that this value is living in your business?

Let's take this to a deeper level of consideration.

The Organizational Structure dimension consists of four categories of activity.
Governance consists policy making, strategic development for the future and oversight of the chief executive. Products/Services/Programs includes what you are providing to clients and customers. Operations/Administration is the support function of the busienss. Resources are financial, human and organizational. 

What are the policies, procedures, practices and behaviors that demonstrate how each of these areas are putting people first?

What does it mean for the Board of your company to put people first? Would your employees agree? How about your customers?

How about the support function of product fulfillment? Do your customers think you put people first when they must return an item or get a corrected bill?

The experience that people have with the Organizational Structure of businesses is how they measure the impact of the company's values. If there is a discrepancy between the stated values, and their experience, then the company has a problem creating the difference that matters.  

Creating Impact isn't simply saying we value people, it is operationalizing those values into the structure of your business.

Being creative is hard work, but it is the work that elevates your business to a new level. The impact of this hard work is greater impact, better results, and change that matters for the long term. And if you are not presently involved in a developmental process that is creating these changes, then you are behind the curve, and harder times await.

There is more here that I haven't touched on. We really haven't looked at the Ideas dimension or the place  of visioning in creating impact. We haven't looked at the Relationship dimension with any depth either. There is still much to explore.

What is the benefit of this kind of approach to business development?

1. The tangible impact of your business grows. If you are willing to work hard at it, you could change your industry by following through on the questions raised by this approach.

2. You create an environment of continuity in the midst of change. The continuity is found in your values, not in your structure. As a result, you are able to build strength for the future.

3. You gain a new level of situational awareness, so that you understand what is happening before others do.

4. You find hope, joy and satisfaction in going to work every day. Your life is changed for the better, not just your employees or customers.

5. You create a legacy of impact that you can pass along to future generations.

I feel a tremendous urgency about the time we are living in. The need for change in the midst of radical, disruptive change is needed to create the conditions for growing sustainable businesses in the future. If you are thinking that business is going to be the same when this recession is over, I'm sorry, it won't be, already isn't, and will only be more so.

If you want to take the next step, let me know. I'll work with you to begin the process of change that makes sense and creates the difference you identify. This is what I do every day, and I welcome the opportunity to work with you who read my blog.  Thank you.

Quick Takes: Social Media and Organizational Effectiveness

Gurprrietsiingh posts on Social Media and Organizational Effectiveness.

Interestingly enough, when CEOs reach out to me, their primary requests are:

Increase collaboration
Get rid of silos
Improve speed of response/Agility/Flexibility
Information dissemination
Knowledge management
Networking
Etc.

And when I look at what social media has brought to the table, I see an immediate connection.

It is an important connection for organizations to make. How does social media impact the effectiveness of organizations. Just because you Twitter, have a Facebook page and have a large number of LinkedIn contacts does not meant that social media is creating a higher level of organizational effectiveness for you.

I find social media tools of varying value. I find all of the difficult to move out of the meet and greet mode. It is like any networking event. We are exchanging contact info, telling our stories, pitching our business, and most of the time it doesn't go anywhere.  The challenge is to understand the potential benefits of social media and build upon those effects.

For example, I see the three immediate benefits.

1. Greater access to relevant information, especially information that is given a context by a real human being.

2. Greater access to a wider diversity of people who either can contribute to improving products and services, or, who will purchase them.

3. Greater opportunities to collaborate in a more immediate, less costly manner.

The problem with most social media is that it is simply how people interact one to one in a more superficial social environment. The challenge is to use online social interaction for project work. Not just having a meeting where people report on what they are doing away from the online gathering. Instead, being able to work, share files, write, edit and visualize project steps in real time is what needs to take place with social media platforms.

I've just been introduced to a platform that I see has great promise to elevate the collaborate work of groups. It is called Jute Networks and has been developed here in Asheville where I work. Jute provides a way to create a community, start a conversation or establish a work group. Being able to do this in one place is what I like about it. In my estimation, this is the next step forward from LinkedIn, Facebook and Ning.

In the future, organizational effectiveness is going to be built around the structures that provide people better ways to work together.  Here's what Gurprrietsiingh sees.

Just to imagine the impact of a Twitter implementation in the workplace gives me goosebumps!
• The ability to ask a question and have the entire organization available to you to come up with an answer.
• The ability to post news, to announce progress updates, to request for help.
• The ability to seek referendum of a sort.
• To be able to create a space where victories are shared and others can ask how and learn
• The ability to reach out to the one person who you think can make a difference
• The ability to escalate an idea at the speed of light, get an opinion on it, version it through rapid dialog, discuss, re-discuss, and then propose – All of this along with your stakeholders across geographies and hierarchies!

The Mind boggles!

And this is what I see Jute doing as well. We are the beginning of a growth curve with social media. Get involved with it. It is going to transform the way we work. And it could not come at a better time.

BTW, I came across this article from this Twitter post.
RT @eaglesflite: RT @PaulSchwend Interesting article by @JoyAndLife on Org Effectiveness and Social Media. http://tinyurl.com/cjmzsj

You can Twitter me at @edbrenegar.

Quick Takes: 10 Ideas for Changing the World

Time magazine recently published their annual list of ideas that are world changers. It is an interesting list.

Here's the list as posted at Marketing Chart.

1. Jobs are the New Assets: Though the last decade saw many real-estate investments and stock-portfolio values skyrocket, today’s recession and many assets’ subsequent loss in value is causing Americans to re-evaluate how they define themselves, putting much more emphasis on the fact that they have a job – their human capital – and less importance on their dwindling assets. This, experts say, is leading to a society that may more carefully live within its means and may ultimately focus on finding increased job satisfaction.

2. Recycling the Suburbs: The housing bust is causing the American suburbs as we know them to die, Time said.  This, combined with changing demographics – including a lower number of overall households with children and a rising preference for urban amenities – is steadily wiping out the recent “American Dream” of a suburban house with a big lawn. Though environmentalists are applauding the demise of car-addicted sprawl, experts acknowledge that the country will face a huge challenge in “remaking” the far-flung, abandoned infrastructure to create things people will want to use again.

3. The New Calvinism: Recent religious trends in the US are showing a resurgence in what Time calls “new Calvinism,” complete with “an utterly sovereign and micromanaging deity, sinful and puny humanity and…predestination.” The shift, which may in part be driven by people’s need for blanket assurance and the security that an all-knowing god and a predestined life can bring in troubling times, is steadily gaining steam.

4. Reinstating the Interstate: President Obama’s plans to revitalize the crumbling and decrepit US interstate system can potentially reinvigorate not only the roadways themselves, but also create new and creative energy and transportation systems along them that will help Americans use power more efficiently, enable public transportation and be better for the environment. Though the government’s ownership of the interstates and the land surrounding them can potentially clear the way for innovative projects, states, regions and other governing bodies and organizations involved in the revamp must work together in unprecedented ways to make it happen.

5. Amortality: A term recently coined by Time writer Catherine Mayer, “Amortals,” embodied by such celebrities as music producer Simon Cowell and singer Madonna, are those who live in the same way, look the same, and do the same things from their teen years until they die. These extinction-dreading amortals, as Mayer calls them, could very well relegate age-appropriate behavior to history books and could have social, medical and commercial ramifications.

6. Africa as Business Destination: Though news media accounts that portray Africa as a “hopeless place of war and famine…populated by tyrants and children with flies in their eyes,” generate the popular belief that Africa needs charity dollars, many multinational corporations, including Ecobank and other Chinese firms, are finding that business investments in parts of Africa offer some of the world’s highest returns. This shift toward “trade, not aid,” is changing the way the world relates to Africa, and transforming the African psyche to one that actively contributes to the world economy rather than taking handouts from it.

7. The Rent-a-Country: The end of food isolationism caused by last year’s high oil prices is giving way to a growing number of food-growing deals between nations, where countries with plentiful, arable land supply food to other nations with the money to pay for it. Though this idea is not new, there is a rising consciousness that many of the food-growing nations cannot even feed their own people and investors face growing risks of popular and governmental backlash. Still, the model has potential if economic and regulatory conditions can mutually benefit all parties involved.

8. Biobanks: Officials at the US’s National Cancer Institute are spearheading an effort to set up the country’s first national biobank, which would store tissue samples, tumor cells, DNA and other biological material from the American public. Though deposits into such a biobank could ultimately bring about advancements in medical science and improve the overall population’s health, the challenge will be gaining the public’s acceptance and trust and maintaining the privacy of “depositors” by restricting access to researchers and those who have permission to access the information.

9. Survival Stores: Retailers throughout America are cutting prices and offering deep discounts to entice shoppers to buy, but the shop of the future might not look anything like what we have today. Instead, Time says today’s stores may give way to places that offer consumers the opportunity to buy low-cost, long-lasting durable goods and also provide experiences to help them cope during difficult times. For instance, a so-called survival store might offer a bicycle to replace the car a consumer can’t afford, and also offer yoga or financial planning to help address stress and money problems.

10. Ecological Intelligence:The global economy and the complicated supply chains involved in producing many of today’s products have grown faster than most consumers’ ability to understand the environmental and ethical consequences of this production. Over the past several decades, industrial ecologists have been using a method called LifeCycle Assessment (LCA) to break down these production processes and supply chains and help major companies improve their ecological consciousness. Recent web startups, such as Good Guide are helping consumers do this too, because ultimately, ecological intelligence involves understanding that what we do in the world is interconnected with everyone else,Time said.

I'm not overwhelmed by this list of ideas. I find them rather pedestrian, not world changing. Even #3 is not a new idea. This religious perspective, as described above, has been around a very long time. Just because someone has given it a new label doesn't mean that it is some new religious expression.

There really is nothing here about how people are to live together. Nothing about changes in the economy or government. Nothing about social enterprises or social media.

There are huge societal shifts taking place. And each one of the ideas above are happening within a larger context of change. This isn't to say that these ideas don't matter. Rather they are not necessarily the most important ideas that are changing the world.