Leading Questions

The cost of gratitude - a Thanksgiving Day rant

My post yesterday on the mutuality of gratitude did not fully capture one aspect of what I was trying to express. Shawn Alladio's comment really helped me to see this.  I guess I was being too gracious. Thank you, Shawn.

When I say that giving thanks is not about you or me, I mean that it is not intended to make us feel good. It is intended to connect us to another person in a way that transforms the relationship.

Our best expression of thanks today may well be a confession of failing to be grateful to others. By expressing gratitude and appreciation to someone by saying I'm sorry, rather than simply "thanks," we open up the possibilities of change in our relationships.

Gratitude is being treated today as an alternative therapeutic device to move unhappy people toward a more positive, hopeful outlook on life. Being grateful can have the effect of making us feel good. I'm happy for those who have found this for their lives. However, this is not why we are to be grateful people. It is a by-product of something else.

When I say thanks, I want that other person to feel good. I want to connect with that person on a deeper level of human interaction than we had the moment before.  When done with sincerity and humility, it has the power to transform the relationship. To heal, to unite, and to give purpose to the relationship's future. 

There is no genuine gratitude in our lives without the recognition that our lives are made by the contributions of other people. When I thank someone for contributing to my life, I'm saying that a hole has been filled by their kindness, their honesty, their sacrifice or their love.

It isn't about me or you and how we feel. It is about recognizing that other people give us the life we live. Without them, we are nothing. There are no self-made men or women. Those who try to be, who think they are are the small people, confined into the narrow world of their own perception. 

Gratitude opens and expands our perception of the world, because we see the gifts and potential of others. When we do, we can express our appreciation for who they are and what they give, regardless of whether it has directly impacted our lives or not.

The power of gratitude is the power be free from our own narcissistic self-importance to a more humble, open relationship to others.

Let me end with one simple story.

Millie Brown was my fourth grade teacher. I was the one student that she had that year that she had to discipline regularly. Once or twice a week, I'd stay after school and write a page out of the dictionary. Then I'd walk the two miles home.

Ms. Brown changed my life that year. I learned boundaries, and a lot of new words. I'm grateful to her for her commitment to be a teacher who cared enough for me, her student, that she'd not let me get away with being an uncontrollable force in the classroom.  Her impact upon my life remains with me to this day.

Years later, I was able to express my gratitude to her as we served together in our church's ministry to members in the hospital. We'd visit people together. It was a sweet way for the relationship to find completeness, and mutuality.

Today, may your expressions of gratitude cost you your pride and self-importance.

May you find healing and openness in your relationships with family and friends. May those you thank find a person transformed by your appreciation for their contribution to your life

Let us return the soul to Thanksgiving Day. Become a person for whom Saying Thanks Every Day is not a therapeutic approach for feeling better, but rather how we live each day in relationship to one another.

Mutual Gratitude

As US residents prepare for a Thanksgiving gathering of family and friends, I gentle reminder about what giving thanks means.

It isn't about you or me.

The purpose of giving thanks is not primarily to make us feel better. It may do that, but that isn't the purpose. If we are to feel anything, it is humility for appreciating and recognizing the gifts and impact of other people upon our lives.  

A well stated expression of gratitude should honor the person whom you are recognizing.

If you are at you in-laws house, like I will be tomorrow, tossing out a glib thank you only shows your insincerity. It is better to say nothing than be insincere in expressing thanks.

Being sincere in expressing thanks demands that we look deeply into the effort and thought, and the effect of another person's actions.

Expressing thanks humbly and sincerely has the potential for transforming the relationship. When it does, then the expression of thanks becomes mutual. This is the ultimate goal of thanksgiving.

Mutual gratitude is the shared recognition that our relationship matters to one another and that we are grateful for the other person's impact upon our life.

The more specific you can be in expressing thanks, the more likely it will be that a mutual return of thanks will be offered.

May our hearts be filled with gratitude for the recognition of the goodness that comes to us through other people. 

Family and Friends - protecting the business relationship

This week's Weekly Leader column - Family and Friends - is about how to protect the relationships in business partnerships.

Too often the relationship isn't strong enough to manage the differences of opinion and conflict that inevitably arise in any business situation.

Enjoy and pass along.

Thanksgiving is more than ...

Yesterday, two friends each sent me emails each focused on different aspects of giving thanks and expressing gratitude.

Thanksgiving is more than a feeling.

Bill Kinnon sent me a Go-To-Market Strategies piece called - When did you last say "Thank You" to a customer? . They offer this word of advice.

Make it personal. You should hand write it. We know...UGH. That's a lot of work. You may be tempted to email your thank you...and maybe you should do that too. BUT, a handwritten, old fashioned thank you note, will take you farther. Why? Because NO ONE else is doing it in today's business world. Also, be as specific about what you are thanking them for, as that makes it much more relevant and genuine. But do not ask for anything in your "thank you." Just be thankful!

This is not just a good idea, but a good thing to do. Today, drop into a local bookstore and buy a box of note cards. Back at the office, take a half-an-hour and write the notes and put them in the mail today. Act quickly as you can to tangibly express gratitude.

Thanksgiving is more than social etiquette.

Tom Morris sent me a link to this NY Times review - Gratitude's Grace Can Be Itself a Gift - of Margaret Visser's The Gift of Thanks: The Roots and Rituals of Gratitude.

“The Gift of Thanks” is a scholarly, many-angled examination of what gratitude is and how it functions in our lives. Gratitude is a moral emotion of sorts, Ms. Visser writes, one that is more complicated and more vital than we think.

English speakers are obsessed with the terms “thanks” or “thank you.” We often say these words more than 100 times a day, she writes, in a flurry that many other cultures find baffling.

The notion that we should thank others is not hard-wired into our brains, but learned from our parents. For a child, she writes, “the first unprompted ‘thank you’ is momentous enough to count as a kind of initiation into a new level of human consciousness.” In people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, little words like “thanks,” she notes, “often survive the shipwreck of all other memories.”

I've not read her book. I look forward to it.

Gratitude needs to be a tangible way to create openness and a mutuality of the affections of gratitude. Read this excerpt from her book. It shows me that gift giving as an expression of thanks is too often a covering up of genuine feelings and tangible actions.

Today, we use paper to cover our gifts, and it is not primarily because they are in need of protection that we wrap them. If we mail a gift, we first carefully wrap it in special "gift" paper — the prettier, the better — and then enclose it, as a safeguard during the journey, in something sturdy and commonplace like brown paper or a plain envelope. Gift wrappings are folded with care. The string that binds a mere parcel becomes, for a gift, a ribbon, often with bows and rosettes added — anything to replace with embellishment the toughness of workaday knots. Extra trouble is taken because of the need to declare that, whatever it is, the thing thus enclosed is not a commodity.

A gift nowadays has almost invariably been bought. As such, it is certainly a commodity, but one that is summoned now to become something else. The wrapping is a sign that the object has changed into a gift. When, on increasingly rare occasions, we give something we ourselves have made — edible gifts mostly, such as jams and chutneys and cakes — we often feel little compulsion to wrap them. We occasionally enfold but fail to hide them, by covering them in something revealing such as cellophane. Not hiding by wrapping means that this present was not bought in a shop. It was made to be given away, not to make money; it does not need, therefore, to be converted into a gift.

We do work at shopping, however, quite apart from having first saved the money to buy gifts. As Christmas draws closer, we spend time fighting our way daily through the shopping crowds, returning from each expedition exhausted, with arms weighed down and aching feet. And we complain. Christmas has gotten out of hand, we say. It has become too commercialized. We are all so greedy, so demanding, and so exigent nowadays. It really is too much. These objections may be true, but our struggles and complaints mean in part that the gifts we have bought have manifestly cost us trouble. We may not actually have made them, but everyone is aware — our own grumbling making sure it is understood — that work, freely undertaken, went into their acquisition.

Thanksgiving is more than feelings, more than social etiquette, more than a public display of our own magnanimity.

It is the appreciation and recognition of the impact of other people upon our lives with the hope that its expression is mutual. When it is, that is when the real transformative power of gratitude has the potential strengthen families, communities and even businesses. It is for this reason that we should Say Thanks Every Day.

Try

Here's this week's Work Life Lead column at Weekly Leader - Try.

You'll get it.

The Communication Bug-A-Boo

Communication is a problem...

... for every person and organization. No one is excluded.  

... because people assume that it is about distributing information.

... because people assume that it is about what you are going to do for me.

... because people don't want to fool with it until it is absolutely necessary, and by then, a simple problem has become an issue.

... because we have a very poor conception of what it is suppose to be. 

Communication is ...

... ideas articulated and presented so that they are understandable.

... interaction between people so that the person who has information to distribute understands the expectations of the persons who are to receive it.

... interaction between people that leads to understanding and action.

... a core activity of human relationships and the function of organizations.

... a means or a vehicle for people to talk and share information that is relevant to their relationship and their individual interests.

... a measure of leadership effectiveness. If you want to know what kind of communicator you are, just ask someone who is a recipient of your communication.

Effective communicators  ...

... present a clear, compelling message that is timely and provides for action or implementation.

... understand what their audience wants to know and how to best present it.

... listen, learn and translate their ideas or information into the vernacular of the person or person with whom they are seeking to communicate.

... are good receivers of other people's communication.

... know how to use various communication methods appropriately to accomplish their goals.

... consistently engage people in conversation to discover how best to communicate with them in order to lead them to action.

If you are a leader, communication is a critical task to get right. Most of us have to unlearn much of what we know.

As I heard often when I was a child, "it isn't what you say that matters, but what is heard."

Add your additions in the comments. Together we may create something here that is genuine communication, not just me distributing my opinions to you. Okay? Let's try it.

Rock Slide

Lately, we've had some rock slides here in Western North Carolina and East Tennessee. Here's one caught on video.

Talking about almost being in the wrong place at the right time. Whew!

HT: Jason McDougald

Veterans Day - the importance of telling your stories

On this Veterans Day, let us remember the men and women who served in the Armed Forces of our country. If you can visit a museum or historical site and honor those who sacrificed for the nation.

Recently, I went with my father to attend his 19th Bomb Group reunion. It was held at the National Museum of the US Air Force at Wright Patterson Airbase, Dayton, Ohio. During the reunion, a memorial was dedicated. Here is Brig.General USAF (ret.) Charles Metcalf, director of the museum spoke briefly upon receiving the memorial gift.

If only 6% of the US population has any direct experience with the military, all the more reason to tell the stories that help to show who these men and women are.

Thank you for your service.

The Leader's Guide to Social Media

This week's Weekly Leader column - The Leader's Guide to Social Media -  addresses the value of social media to organizational leaders.

I know many people who resist using social media. They are content with a relatively small circle of relationships. They prefer face-to-face interaction, or at least conversation by telephone.

This is a luxury that most business can no longer afford. They must adopt a social media strategy in order to have access to the widest possible network of information and influence possible.  Welcome to the age of social media

The Fall of the Berlin Wall - 20th Anniversary

Twenty years ago today, the unthinkable occurred. The Berlin Wall, which had divided the city since the early 1960s, came crumbling down. It was an act of freedom for those who had lived under the Communist rule in eastern Europe. Two years later the Communist government in the Soviet Union collapsed and new democracy sprang up over night.

My generation remembers this as a watershed moment in our lives. We grew up with a clear distinction between free and oppressed. The West was free and the people's of the East, who were living under the domination of the Communist governments of the Soviet bloc, were not. Today, it is a different story.

That was an ideological age. Today, hardly at all. Twenty years ago, freedom was a real topic of debate. Today, there is no debate, only the exercise of power.

Don't think those issues matter any more. Think we've moved beyond them. Here are some voices that stood for freedom before the Wall came down.

Lech Walesa - Polish Solidarity movement leader and first president of Polish third republic

"As a nation we have the right to decide our own affairs, to mould our own future. This does not pose any danger to anybody. Our nation is fully aware of the responsibility for its own fate in the complicated situation of the contemporary world."

“We hold our heads high, despite the price we have paid, because freedom is priceless.”

“It takes really a long while for people to learn to take advantage of (democracy). So the legal framework of democracy can function everywhere. But as we say in Poland, it's hard to make a bull move unless it really wants to.”

"I realize that the strivings of the Polish people gave rise, and still do so, to the feelings of understanding and solidarity all over the world."

Andrei Sakharov - Soviet scientist and dissident

“Our country, like every modern state, needs profound democratic reforms. It needs political and ideological pluralism, a mixed economy and protection of human rights and the opening up of society.”

"Profound insights arise only in debate, with a possibility of counterargument, only when there is a possibility of expressing not only correct ideas but also dubious ideas."

"Freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorships."

Alexandre Solzhenitsyn - Russian author and Noble Prize recipient

“Justice is conscience, not a personal conscience but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience usually recognize also the voice of justice."

“In our country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the State”

“For us in Russia communism is a dead dog. For many people in the West, it is still a living lion.”

“The revolution is an amalgam of former Party functionaries, quasi- democrats, KGB officers, and black-market wheeler-dealers, who are standing in power now and have represented a dirty hybrid unseen in world history”

Vaclav Havel - Czech poet and first president of the Czech republic

"The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both."

"Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace."

To those who now know freedom who once did not, please do not let us forget what your brothers and sisters, friends and family died to secure. May your voices reach our ears and may we hear so we too may understand.

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