Leading Questions

Parallel Structures of Networks of Relationships

One of the questions that I find continuing to dominate many of the conversations that I have with organizational leaders is the one related to how they should structure their business.

For example, yesterday in a conversation with a friend and client, we discussed the role of the administrative assistant in his business. Like many small businesses, this role has shifted from an essential one to a discretionary one. Many employment positions have gone away because the benefit does not match their cost.

The issue isn't whether the tasks that these people do are not valuable. The issue is whether the role as defined is.

This is a picture of the shift being taken in many places from a traditional hierarchical business structure to one that I call a parallel one. This parallel structure is a network of relationships.

As you can see by this chart, there are some real differences between the traditional approach to organizing a business, and one built around relationships.  This shift is hard for everyone who has spent their work life in a hierarchical structure.

In the traditional approach, a person is hired to fill a position. That position has a job description that outlines the specific tasks and responsibilities that they are to do. The employee's expectation is that is what their time at work will be like each day. Completing tasks that are assigned through the organizational design of the company. Responsibility is passed down to the employee,while authority is held at the top. This system worked well during an era of easy growth and social continuity.  It does so because the ultimate purpose of the organization is institutional integrity.

In a network of relationships parallel structure, the job description is also relational. It means that the individual's character and engagement with people is part of what makes them a valued employee. Some may think this has always been true. And that is correct. These parallel structures of relationships have always formed with a specific need emerges. But they were seen as temporary or adhoc, not a permanent part of the organization's structure.

What We Want

The greatest business failure of the past thirty years has not been scandals or financial collapses. It is the failure of business to understand the value of their employees. This failure originates in the structure of businesses.

If employees are functionaries in an administrative, production system, then their value is diminished, by let say at least 30%, and in some cases twice that.

If the business is organized to create order, then employees are hired to comply with that order. Institutional integrity becomes the goal of the organization.

However, in a network of relationships model, people bring much more to their work. This is what the team building movement has been teaching us for a generation. How people relate and work together is a key ingredient in an organization's success.

I suspect though that here again the value of the individual to company is still not perceived well.

If you were to sit down with every employee for coffee and talk about their lives, you would find what I am finding. There are three things that they want. Everyone says them differently, but they can be summarized simply. 

People want their lives and work to be Personally Meaningful, Socially Fulfilling and Make a Difference that Matters.

This is what we all want. We want the values that matter to us to be central in how we live. We want some kind of purpose for our lives. There needs to be a point to it.

We also want our relationships to be healthy and whole. We don't like conflict. We don't like to be manipulated, to be taken for granted, or to be used for someone's selfish purposes. We want to walk into work hopeful and excited about the opportunity to share my day with the people with whom I work.

We want to feel at the end of the day that we did something that made a difference. Listen to what people say when they talk about a good day. One where they accomplished something. They overcame a challenge or an obstacle and succeeded at it. Second, they did something for someone else that was appreciated. It made a difference. There was real satisfaction in helping solve person's problems. That's what we want.

The Circle of Impact Connection

The lesson for me when I began to see this picture emerge is how congruent it was to the three dimensions of leadership that I had identified as the Circle of Impact.

The three dimensions that command every leader's attention are Ideas, Relationships and Structure. We tend to segregate them, thinking that it is easier that way. Instead it creates confusion and greater complexity. That is why the four Connecting Ideas - Purpose or Mission, Values, Vision and Impact - are essential tools for helping link together the three dimensions.  And it begins by clarifying the Connecting Ideas.

The Circle of Impact applies to both kinds of structures, traditional and parallel, because this is a basic, fundamental understanding of all organizations, regardless of type. Every organization must address its ideology, its social context and how the business is structured to achieve impact. All of them. However, here's the difference.

The parallel structure, described above, is a Network of Relationships. Just like in a traditional hierarchical setting, this organizational structure requires attention to the Connecting Ideas, relationships and the organization of their work.

Networks of Relationships are formed around a Shared Mission and Shared Responsibility, where leadership, authority and responsibility to contribute are shared.

From this perspective of Shared Leadership, the responsibility of the individual is to take initiative to create impact. This is the most basic contribution of the team member. And because the group is organized as a network of relationships, their collaboration and communication is an essential focus of their relationships.

Three Contributions

Most of us have experienced team work where there was a genuine experience of coming together as a group of shared purpose and contribution. And most likely, we see these experiences as the exceptions in our lives.

Let's return to my conversation with my friend and client about the administrative staff person in his office.

How can this perspective about parallel structures, networks of relationships, shared mission, shared responsibility, shared leadership and impact fit into his traditional business structure?  

It begins with recognizing the each individual has latent potential waiting to be released. Everyone of us wants to work in an environment that is personally meaningful, socially fulfilling and makes a difference that matters. If that is so, then the first step is figuring out how those three personal goals become the basis for the contributions of each person.

As a result, each person contributes that which is personally meaningful. Each person contributes in their interpersonal interaction that which is socially fulfilling. And each person contributes out of their own talent, expertise and character of personal initiative those actions that create the impact that makes a difference that matters.

For each person to do this means that the social structure of the business must change. And this shift is based on what each person shares with the whole of the organization.

Here's the insight that is a key to understanding this organizational change. Because these networks of relationships are parallel structures, they can work along side of, and even within the traditional structures of hierarchy. In fact they always have. But rarely as a core strategy, but rather as a tactical approach to team work. 

We can see this is the way business define positions of employment. Instead of focused on contribution, the emphasis has always been task oriented. As result, the value of the employee is not realized, and it makes the case for reductions in force must easier to make.

The future belongs to these parallel structures. Let networks of relationships form. Let them take collective initiative to make a difference that matters, then new vitally and impact will emerge.

Creating an Open Culture of Gratitude*

 The executive leaders of businesses are not just strategic decision-makers and systems managers, but the creators of culture.  This culture is the human dimension of their organization. It is how people interact, communicate, collaborate and operate ethically. 

There are some aspects of a healthy culture that transcend time and place, industry and organizational purpose. One of those marks is openness.

Two questions drive this interest for me.

What is an open culture?

How can the practice of gratitude contribute to it?

Think of a culture of a business as being the product of the ideas and relationships of people connected to it.

A culture has distinguishing characteristics, activities, branded products and services. and specific processes that represent that culture. It is also the connecting ideas of purpose or mission, values, vision and impact that are given life by the people within the culture. A culture is what binds people together as a group, a movement or an organization, and provides them a way to interact and support what matters to them collectively.

Cultures can be open or closed, healthy or dysfunctional, unified or confused, sustainable or dying.

The key to creating a healthy, sustainable culture is openness.

The Marks of an Open Culture

In an open culture there are low barriers to contributing.

A new person can join, and immediately make an impact. There is no process of jumping through hoops to determine whether you are worthy of contributing. I see this particularly in social organizations, whether a club or religious congregation. In an open culture, people join and start participating and contributing right away. Their contribution is valued and recognized.

Another characteristic of an open organizational culture is a high incidence of personal initiative being taken by members. In my mind, initiative is the beginning of all leadership. Without initiative, there is no leadership, only passive followership.

In a closed culture, the initiative is reserved for the authority figures. They decide what the group does and doesn’t do. This high control environment means that personal initiative is resisted and those who may be more independent, creative and innovative in their attitudes and behaviors are discouraged or punished for being so. In an open culture, people recognize that they have the opportunity and responsibility to create new and better ways of realizing the impact of their organization. So, they take personal initiative to make difference that matters.

A third mark is that openness creates a higher level of adaptability. In a closed culture, the mindset becomes defensive and resistant to change. The assumption is that a culture is fixed in time, and remains the same over time.  Rather, what is fixed are the values that drive the culture. The expression of those values can change over time. But the values don't.

Jim Collins and Jerry Porras in their book, Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies, make the distinction between core values and cultural practices.

“Core Values are the organization’s essential and enduring tenets – a small set of timeless guiding principles that require no external justification.”

Cultural practices, in their model, are those practices that have replaced the core values as the drivers of the company. These practices have lost their connection to the core values with the result that the company becomes closed to opportunities through change.

In an open culture, values matter. 

Your mission or purpose can change. Your vision can change. Your understanding of the impact that you want to have can change. They can because you are adapting to changes that are occurring simultaneously throughout the landscape of your business.  What guides you through change are your values. 

In an open culture, people find a culture where there are low barriers to contributing, their personal initiative to make a difference that matters is welcomed, and the company adapts more easily to change by being rooted in its values.

The challenge to creating an open culture is implementation. It is one thing to have well defined connecting ideas. It is another thing to know how to act upon them within the structure of the organization.

What I've discovered is that the practice of gratitude, as characterized in Say Thanks Every Day: The Five Actions of Gratitude, is a set of strategic practices that support an open culture.

The Five Actions of Gratitude as Openness Strategy 

Each of the five actions is an outreach of openness to others. It is not protective, defensive, exclusionary or elitist. It is open, grateful, giving, welcoming, respectful and creative.

To Say Thanks is appreciate the actions and impact of another person. It is recognizing another person or group’s contribution to your life and work. It is also a type of self-awareness that sees the beneficial place of others in our life

To Give Back is to recognize that I want to give back in service to persons, groups or communities some measure of the goodness that I’ve received from them.

This is not a payback of a debt owed, except as a debt of gratitude. It is an act of thankful contribution.

Imagine if this was the culture of your office right now. What would it would it look like. Maybe, what you’d see is a higher level of not just contribution, but sharing of work and responsibilities so that it gets done, and done well.

To Make Welcome is to create an open environment for people to take initiative to contribute. With openness comes personal responsibility to make the workplace a better place to work, to innovate ways to better serve customers, and to resolve problems and issues before the grow into a crisis.

This is the key action for creating an open culture. It requires a specific kind of leadership that permits others to lead along side one another. It is a culture of shared responsibility and opportunity.

To Honor Others is to treat people with dignity, respect and kindness. These are values that characterize the best of relationships. The are the basis for a culture of gratitude and trust.

The reality for most businesses is that these are rarely evident with any degree of strength. Why is it so?  My guess is that these practices require effort and commitment.  They do not easily translate to a company's bottom-line. They are not typically the qualifications for executive leadership. These values only create efficiency when the culture has reached a level of maturity. As noted above, it is this culture that produces the adaptibility that is so essential for sustainable growth in the current business environment.

To Create Goodness is the outcome of an open culture that invites personal initiative to make a difference that matters.Creativity is born in the initiative of a person. It rises from their values, their sense of purpose, the questions that lead them to explore new ways of doing the things and finally to make a difference that matters.

Goodness is the impact of an open culture. As the ancient Greeks understood goodness, it is a way to understand the fulfillment of purpose. It is way to understand wholeness, completeness, integrity and success. It is the fulfillment of the potential that resides in each of the connecting ideas. It is that intangible quality that brands the experience that people within a company's culture comes to measure the organization by.  It is the product of personal initiative, which flourishes within an open culture.

Creating an Open Culture of Gratitude

These practices are not just good ideas, which they are, not just good things to do, which they are, but more importantly a systemic strategy for the effective functioning of every organization. In order for a system of gratitude to be developed, the system that currently exists must be changed or replaced. It may be a small change or a large one, but turning your organization into an open culture of gratitude creates an environment of shared leadership that attracts the best talent to join you.

Leading in an Open Culture of Gratitude

I hear from people that gratitude is this sweet, grandmotherly sentiment that has little relevance to leading organizations. Obviously, they didn't know my grandmother. Instead, to practice gratitude as I've outlined here requires personal maturity, inner confidence, and a willingness to trust. Instead of it being trite, it is the most transformative, courageous thing an executive leader can do. 

To transform an organization’s culture from a closed one to an open one is dependent on the person at the top changing. It is a simple change, but a very difficult one. It is difficult because it is not tactical, but personal.

In order for an open culture of gratitude to grow, you have to decide that you are not the go-to-guy for everything, that you can’t make every decision, resolve every issue, be the king or queen on the throne, and be the one who dictates the course of your business. You can't even be the expert at creating an open culture of gratitude. You have to realize that you are a facilitator of talent, and that the value of that talent is only realized fully when each person is free to exercise their personal initiative for the greater good of the customer, other employees, the business and the community.

This is a change of mindset, of attitude and behavior. This is the supreme test of the character of the leader. Can you let go and let you people lead? If you can, then you can create an open culture of gratitude. If not, then you will be following those who can do it.

Openness is the key, and gratitude is the strategy that elevates openness to a practical, functional level.

Be grateful, giving, welcoming, honoring and creative and you’ll find new depth of impact emerging from the parts of your organization that have never produced to their potential. It all starts by being open and grateful.

* An earlier version of those post appeared as one of The Stewardship of Gratitude columns in Weekly Leader.

Are leaders born?

My friend, FC, asked me the other day in response to my Weekly Leader column, Luis Urzua: Exception or Standard? whether I thought he was a born leader. I responded with,

"Not really. I'd say he is an intentional leader. It is a moral question of choosing to lead, and lead in a particular way, and not one of personality or talent."

In respect to FC, let me offer more explanation.

For a long time the nature / nurture question of human development has been a standard by which questions, like the one FC raised is discussed. The longer I deal with issues of leadership, the more I see the nature/nurture, born or made question as a secondary, less relevant issue. Because I see too many people who would not be characterized as being born a leader, who are leaders whose life and work make a genuine difference.

Talent is a major topic in organizational circles today. The conversation revolves around how to recruit, train and retain top-flight talent. There is definitely an aspect of this discussion that relates to the question of whether some is born to be a leader. I am not saying that talent doesn't matter, only that it isn't what makes a leader.

Leadership is only realized in action, by what one does with the talent they are born with.

The personality-centric view of leadership commonly called the "great man"(sic) or heroic theory of leadership, promotes a limited, idealize view of what a leader does. It has suggested, wrongly in my opinion, that leadership is a product of the projection of a leader's personality upon a group or organization. It is condescending to followers, colleagues, employees or other leaders.

Luis Urzua's leadership is seen in the choices that he made. They are moral choices, not simply tactical or strategic ones.

To lead in the circmustances that he and the other 32 miners faced, required him to step beyond managing. His leadership created an environment that elevated a collection of men, who had a death sentence upon their heads as soon as the cave-in began, to be a team that survived in a remarkably healthy state.

Luis Urzua chose to lead by unifying his men through confidence, discipline, structure and a mutuality of equality. His leadership did not allow individual concerns that each man had to eclipse the needs of the whole group. Only as a whole and intact team would they have survived, and done so as well as they did.

Luis Urzua's leadership reminds me of the leadership of Admiral James Stockdale, the highest ranking POW during the Vietnam War. I wrote about him here, here, and here. Their stories are similiar in that both were leaders of a group of men were living in a life and death situation. And both chose to lead in a manner that unified a group of men who easily could have lost hope, composure and began to think of their own survival as of utmost importance.

Leadership is a choice, and not a natural one. The natural choice is to put one's own welfare first, instead of the team's. I don't believe people are born to sacrifice their own benefit for the sake of others. It is something that is learned through mentorship, example, training and experience. For those for whom this kind of leadership seems so natural, my sense is that as a child they were influenced by leaders of this sort, and their home experience provided a learning environment to gain these values.

For Luis Urzua, it may well have been playing soccer. For James Stockdale, the lessons learned in studying the philosophy of the ancient Stoics. In both we see leadership that made the difference under the most extreme circumstances. As I point out in my Weekly Leader column, Luis Urzua's leadership is not the exception. It is the standard.

A Fine Line

A fine line marks our lives.

Its a fine line that separates us from who we are today and our better selves, 

     between what we think and what we know,

          between what we desire and what we seek,

               between what we believe and what we do.

A fine line between what we are willing to try and what we will sacrifice.

A fine line between making a difference, and wasting our lives.

A fine line between fear and determination.

A fine line between failure and success.

A fine line between good and evil,

     between altruism and narcissism,

          between nobility and inhumanity.

A fine line between who we are and how people perceive us.

A fine line between who others are and how we perceive them.

A fine line between us and people who are different than us.

A fine line between what is normal and what is abnormal.

A fine line between what is acceptable and and what is not.

A fine line between comedy and tragedy,

     between humor and horror,

          between the fullness of life and the loss of it.

Yet, we live in a world where all these fine lines are portrayed as wide gulfs that we are unable to cross.

These gulfs represent the worst of ourselves. They are what divide us. They treat life as a dichotomy between one thing and another. As a result, they rid us of the beauty of ambiguity.

The fine line is a moving line that forces us to pay attention, to be aware, and to appreciate the subtle nuances that actually exist, so that we live as seekers, explorers and discoverers of what life offers.

To live with the fine line is to live with ambiguity. To do so means we break out of the ever narrowing boxes of perception that close us in, make us defensive, isolated, and out of touch with the world that exists on the other side.

The gulf of dichotomy is a fantasy world. It is not real. It is an illusion. It is a world of hermetically sealed categories that we embrace to avoid engagement what those people and arenas that we do not understand.

There is a fine line that most of us never cross. It is a line that breaks us out of the conformity of dichotomy, of the we-versus-them mindset that is a product of manipulation and control.

Are we afraid? It is okay to say so.

Do we think for ourselves? Or do we follow some conventional line of thought to fit in, to belong, to find some connection beyond ourselves. 

Do we lack personal initiative? Do our actions defines us? Actions of purpose and impact, not just calendars full of activities.  

Life's goodness and beauty doesn't come in a box from an online retailer. They aren't a commodity to acquire, to trade or to hedge against. It isn't one thing or another, it is embedded in the ambiguity that defines the fine line.

Recently, I wrote ...

Picture with me walking out to the edge of what you know and have experienced, and seeing a line. 

That line is the horizon of your life. It is way out there.

Or, it is right here, in front of you, close at hand, always marking the line that confronts you. Day by day, that line is getting closer and closer. Avoid it and you'll be boxed in, cornered, paralyzed by the ambiguity of the fine line.

The fine line is the horizon of our life. We live up against it everyday. Face up to it and find a life and work filled with goodness and beauty, meaning and fulfillment, and a difference that truly matters.

We have a choice. Accept the fine line, step across it, and embrace a world of ambiguity, goodness and beauty. Or, shrink back from it, embracing the gulf of dichotomy, and imprisoning ourselves in our own world of irreconcilable difference.

It's a fine line. Will you embrace it?

10 Actions that Make a Difference

1. Write down your thoughts, especially those that wake you up in the middle of the night.

2. Read one book outside your field of expertise and interest. Then read another.

3. Write a personal mission statement that describes the impact that you want to achieve in your life and work.

4. Write thank you notes.

5. At the next business social event, meet three people with whom you follow up with a meeting. (This idea comes from my friend Meridith Elliot Powell.)

6. Ask clients to make referrals.

7. Spend an hour looking at whether your purpose is aligned with the work you do, the business you are in or the organization you lead.

8. Establish a mentor / menetee relationship. It doesn't matter which one you are. It is the relationship that matters.

9. Spend an hour answering in writing the Five Questions that Every Person Must Ask (See page 3 in the Circle of Impact guides). Don't spend more than an hour. If requires longer, put aside, and come back to it tomorrow.

10. Take someone you want to get to know to lunch. Ask them if they were to invite someone to lunch who would it be, and what questions would they ask. Then together answer them.

As the complexity of the world has increased, BIG ideas are now small ideas that can be applied in simple, daily ways. This is how we grow into being people and leaders who make a difference that matters.

Circle of Impact Consultation & Coaching debuts

There is “… a thinning line between life and work …” that is forcing us to step back and reorient ourselves to the future relationship of the work we do and the life we want to lead.

Until our life purpose is aligned with the work we do, and our values are aligned with the relationships we have, our vision for impact is just an idea waiting for fulfillment.

Everyone wants their life and work …

    To be personally meaningful …

            To be socially fulfilling, and …

                    To make a difference that matters.

Circle of Impact Consultation & Coaching is here to be a trusted guide toward a future that is meaningful, fulfilling and that creates the impact that makes a difference that matters.

We create an Action Plan that aligns your purpose, your relationships and the social and organizational structures where you are involved that positions you to achieve the impact that you want in your life and work.

How We Plan is How We Implement

We don’t just plan, plan some more, and once we are done planning, then act. We do Active Planning where you begin to act on your plan as soon as it is clear and practical. As you do, we review and adapt to what we learn as we go along. As a result, we are always in a planning - implementing mindset. The benefit is that this keeps us alert to changes taking place that provides us opportunities to strengthen the effect of the active planning process.

What does an Active Planning Process Look Like?

Everything is built around Conversation. When we talk, we learn and discover hidden wisdom and insight.

I ask Questions that help us discover what we need to know. My questions are focused on revealing to us the action steps that we need to make. See my 2010 Planning Guide for a list of questions that we can use.

We use the Circle of Impact as a guide to be complete, comprehensive and strategic.

Complete means we cover all the bases.

Comprehensive means we look at the whole of your life and work.

Strategic means we create a plan that integrates your goals, values, relationships and social and organizational settings.

We look at your Network of Relationships, who you know, who knows you, and who you need to know in the future. We link them together into a socially fulfilling network of relationships that enables your network to be an asset in fulfilling your purpose in making a difference.

Our Analysis of your situation, by using the Circle of Impact model, provides you a basis for a clear perspective on where you are right now, and where you’d like to be in the future.

From this perspective, we create an Action Plan that guides your decisions and actions to achieve the impact that you desire.

Your greatest leverage for achieving your desired impact is through the Social and Organizational Structures where you are involved. The action plan we create addresses how to work within these structures. The key is aligning your purpose, values and vision for impact through these structures.

The Client – Consultant/Coach relationship

My relationship with clients is modeled after the Circle of Impact. I work to make sure that our communication is clear, that our relationship is based on trust and respect; and that the structure of our work together is organized to meet your needs and within a financial framework that makes sense to you. I am honest, yet discrete, respecting the boundaries that define our relationship. I care for my clients, and believe in their potential to make a difference that matters. Our relationship begins with a conversation to clarify your needs and goals, and to see how we can work together.

This new program is the product of over six months of intense redesign of the work that I've been doing for 15 years.

Circle of Impact 2010 Planning Guide http://edbrenegar.typepad.com/CircleofImpact2010PlanningGuide.pdf

Circle of Impact 2010 Planning Guide Questions http://edbrenegar.typepad.com/CircleofImpact2010PlanningGuideQuestions.pdf

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.

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

Bridging the Gap between Idea and Application

Think with me for a moment about the transitions we experience.  A transition is from one place to the next. It is like a journey of going from one place to another. Each one of us involved with a transition right now.  How do I know this? Two reasons. I'm in transition, all the time. And, to be in transition is to live.

Now, visualize some aspect of your life or work that you would like to fulfill or resolve. It may be an opportunity or a problem. As you visualize it, you could probably give it a name like:

Find a job.
Complete a sale.
Convince her to marry me.
Get out of debt.
End the bickering.
Start a business.
Help a child.

Each of these desires is an idea in our mind. Each one helps us to understand what is important right now. Each idea points towards the future. We can envision a desired future because we can visualize it. Is it real? It is a real idea, a real concept. So, yes, it is real.

The more vivid that vision, the more the desire grows in us to see the idea transcend the abstract and become concrete, become real in a different way.

I'm convinced that greatest challenge facing most of us is not having a vision, or goal, or passion or dream. The greatest challenge is knowing how to make it real. How to transcend the abstract and bring it to life.

The question of how to bridge the gap between the abstract and the concrete has plagued me for a very long time.

I'm a very slow reader. I read looking for how to apply the ideas that the author presents. It is hard when the book is filled with compelling ideas, and yet, there isn't much practicality in it. The same is true of presenters who have really great ideas, but there is something missing. What's missing is a clear path through to application.

If you have experienced this gap between ideas and actions then you are in the second largest club to humanity.  I want you to understand that you can learn how to bridge the gap. If you use my Circle of Impact and Four Questions charts, you'll be able to learn to bridge the gap. Here's what I've learned.

1. We bridge not by appreciating the value of an idea, but its application. We have to ask ourselves. If I find this idea compelling, or believe in this idea,what actions am I under obligation to do. For example, if you respect someone, how will you practice it so others will see you as a respect-filled person.

2. There are a lot of ideas that are compelling that are not grounded in reality. Their appeal is to the emotions. That is fine, but it is insufficient. Ideas that have an emotional appeal without clear application serve to create anxiety and doubt in the long run. It becomes very important to bridge the gap between our emotions and the experience of our ideas finding a successful application in life.

3. There is no formula for bridging the gap. We take one step at a time, and then take another. Even though you can see the future, it doesn't mean that you know how to get there. The first time I learned to do orienteering, it was in the dead of winter in New Hampshire. We had a map, a compass and we knew where we were, and where we needed to be on the map by dinner time. We bushwacked up a mountain in knee deep snow with backpacks on. We took it one step, one reading at a time. We'd looked ahead to a tree, a bush or a rock as a reference point and walk to it, then do another, and another. We did that all day until it turned dark and we took shorter steps until we got to our camp for the night..

4. We discover how to take those steps in conversations with others.  Yesterday, during our first Leading from the Middle workshop session, we had a really lively exchange about a number of ideas. Each one of them were compelling in some way. As we used the Circle of Impact and Four Questions charts, we reached a point of clarity about what needed to be done. I asked for volunteers to help the people who shared their vision or problem. After the session, these people gathered together and begin to talk. Out of those conversations, the first steps forward were identified. 

This is how we bridge the gap between our ideas and their practical application. If you need some help, just ask. We can bridge the gap together. If you have team or a board that seems stuck, give me a call, let's see how we can help them the transition from where they are to where they need to be.

 

A Reminder to Brothers, Fathers, and Men

Jan Gunnarsson is the co-author of a wonderful little book called Hostmanship. He sent me a note today on Facebook that I want to share.

Hi Ed! As my mission in life is Hostmanship and to contribute to a more welcoming world, i felt really sad when a saw a photograph in the news. Well, i picked up my guitar and sang right out what I felt, went to a studio, got some musicians together and put the result on Youtube.

Here's his song.

Jan ends his song with these words.

Don't just react. Act.
Don't just think. Talk.
Don't just sit. Walk.
Pass It On.
This song is from a Father with hopes that you might donate something to an organization that makes this world a better place to live in. That's all.

We are living in a time when the economic hardships that affect individuals are impacting non-profit organizations as well. If you can contribute money, great. If you can contribute your time and talents, even better. Our communities and our world depends on individuals taking the initiative to make a difference by giving. If this means going without an extra cup of coffee, a movie next weekend or a second trip to the store today, so be it.

Thanks for the gifts you give. May they come back to you as satisfaction that you've made a difference.