Leading Questions

The Recession is a Game Changer

Do you need proof that the world has changed with this recession?

Check out Tom Peter's list, Recession46: Forty-six “Secrets” and “Clever Strategies” For Dealing with the Recession of 2008-XXXX.

He starts by stating the obvious.

You come to work earlier.
You leave work later.
You work harder.
You may well work for less; and, if so, you adapt to the untoward circumstances with a smile—even if it kills you inside.
You volunteer to do more.
You dig deep, deeper, deepest—and always bring a good attitude to work.
You fake it if your good attitude flags.
You literally practice your “game face” in the mirror in the morning, and in the loo mid-morning.
You give new meaning to the idea and intensive practice of “visible management.”
You take better than usual care of yourself and encourage others to do the same— physical well-being significantly impacts mental well-being and response to stress.
You shrug off shit that flows downhill in your direction—buy a shovel or a “pre-worn” raincoat on eBay.
You try to forget about “the good old days”—nostalgia is self-destructive
(And bores others.)
You buck yourself up with the thought that “this too shall pass”—but then remind yourself that it might not pass any time soon, and so you re-dedicate yourself to making the absolute best of what you have now.
You work the phones and then work the phones some more—and stay in touch with and on the mind of positively everyone.
You frequently invent breaks from routine, including “weird” ones — “changeups” prevent wallowing and bring a fresh perspective.
You eschew all forms of personal excess.
You simplify.
You sweat the details as never before.
You sweat the details as never before.
You sweat the details as never before.
You raise to the sky and maintain at all costs the Standards of Excellence by which you unfailingly and unflinchingly evaluate your own performance.

In effect, you need two plans going forward. You need a new business plan. And you need a personal development plan.

Even as government becomes an increasingly intrusive part of our lives, we are more independent than ever before. The social support structure of family and community are not what they once were. Which means that if you do not have an attitude and the behaviors to be resilient and adaptive, then you are going to have a hard time coping with the changes that are taking place.

Read Tom Peters whole list. Copy it. Reflect on it. Factor it into your personal development plan.

HT: Dan Pink

You are in control of you - Admiral James Stockdale on surviving in stressful situations

This week's Weekly Leader column - You are in charge of you - looks at the stress that comes from losing one's job in the context of the story of James Stockdale, the highest ranking US POW imprisoned during the Vietnam War.

A long section from an excellent interview posted at the Academy of Achievement where Admiral Stockdale tells about how he managed the psychological stress of imprisonment, and the role that the philosophy of Epictetus had in his survival.

Admiral, how did you survive psychologically? The other men you mentioned perished under the same circumstances.

James Stockdale: I don't know. I didn't feel like I had more vitality than the next one. I had things to do. I was alone a lot, and I found ways to talk to myself and to bolster my own morale. I was getting occasional letters from my wife Sybil. And she would from me. She probably wrote 50 and I got six, and I probably wrote 20 and she got two or something like that.

After I came out of Alcatraz, we all came back to the regular prison. They tried to get me to go downtown. They tried everything. They would give me the ropes three times a week. One of my original breakthroughs was self disfiguration. I was given a lot of times in the ropes in room 18, which is the main torture chamber of Hoa Lo prison. It also serves as kind of a ceremonial chamber when no prisoners are in there. In that, the only room in the building, a great big building with plate glass windows, and they had big heavy quilts that they drew across it. I was in there and they were about at their wits end. Two officers were working me over. Pi Ga, my torture guard, was always there to take me wherever they wanted. It was about mid-afternoon and they said, "Okay, you've done okay, today. Now you want to get washed up." I knew what that meant. That meant we were going downtown that night.

A Conversation about Constant Change - 3

Here is my response to Steven Devijver's questions (below) author of the free ebook, The Strategy of Constant Change

Q1: You’re this amazing guy with a really special view on leadership and human relationships. What’s your view then - with all this background - on the three human universals? I ask this because you’ve only just recently written on your blog about The Golden Rule. I would like to understand why you think these tree human universals are novel.

Steven, I'm not sure that these universals are novel. I think your identification of them is insightful. They are what I observe in my dealings with people. They want to be treated with respect, kindness and given the opportunity to grow. Yet, at the same time, as people, we make mistakes.

There are two aspects of this worth identifying. There are mistakes that come from a lack of knowledge or ability. These can be corrected by instruction and training. The other kind of mistakes are ones of character.  These are more serious because they are not so easily subject to being changed by training, but by disciplined action. If what I say sounds like Aristotle, you'd be correct. I believe of all the ancient philosophers, his perspective on how we are to live is the closest to what people raised within an institutional context need today.  The parallel insight is of the management philosophers (Say and Schumpeter, especially) of the past couple hundred years who described entrepreneurialism in similar ways. From Aristotle through to Peter Drucker, the virtuous, happy person is the one who acts and creates new things.

I see in your identification of these human universals an ancient truth that is emerging in discussions about organizations and institutions in our day. I point most specifically to my good friend Tom Morris who has been writing and speaking on the value of ancient wisdom in the context of modern corporate institutions for almost twenty years. His perspective informs much of my own.

To be human is to create, and this comes from action, from taking initiative to transform abstract ideas into concrete realities. I believe that this is why God made us, and is God's most indelible mark upon us.

Q2: You mention the human point-of-view on organizational change. How important are human beings and relationships in organizations according to you, and what else should we pay attention to to help organizations thrive?

What I wrote above is about the individual person. Every person, however, exists within a social context, or, rather, many social contexts. There is our family, our neighborhood, our associations whether they are religous, political, or interest based, and then, of course, our work context. What I find is that social organization leads in one direction without intentional human intervention. I find that most organizations grow towards minimizing ambiguity, resist change, exclude outside influence, and become uniform,closed systems of relationships that squeeze out human initiative in favor of social compliance. One of the unintended consequences of universal education is to remove human initiative in favor of comformity. We treat education as a management exercise where efficiency is valued over effectiveness. This is true in every institution that I have had contact with during my lifetime. I do not think that this is intentional, but rather a logical result of how we think.

We think like managers who do not own the work we do. We simply have organzed our lives around the performance of certain activities. Ask people what their purpose is, and rarely does it have anything to do with the work they perform. We think like managers instead of as leaders because we have been taught to work within an institutional environment. I heard yesterday that a million people have lost their jobs in the United States over the past year. Those businesses that lost those people are now more efficient, but are they more effective. Are they capable of taking advantage of opportunities that still exist? I don't think so. Now, imagine, all those million people starting new businesses. Imagine the creative energy that will be released into world as a result.

From my perspective, I see a need to reconceptualize not only what it means to live an authentic, happy, virtuous human life, but also what this means within a social and insititutional environment. As a result, I'm interested in the nature of human relationships. Let me give one example of what I see.

Over the past decade there has been an explosion in the level of social interaction that takes place on line. You and I met through our involvement in the Triiibes online social network. I see in the growth of social media an expression of the basic human need for companionship.  However, I don't see all this social interaction as necessarily their purpose. Instead, taking my lead from Aristotle, I believe that our human interaction should lead to collaborative human action. Through these social media tools, we should be forming relationships where we work together to achieve some impact. If all they are is a place to talk, they will not be sustainable. They will degenerate into a narrow clique built around a few strong, influential voices, and a circle of people who compliantly go along. It is a picture of all social institutions in microcosim.

What is the solution? I return to Aristotle and entrepreneurism. We must become virtuous people who act to create new ways of meeting needs and opportunities. My personal responsibility is to be a person that others can trust. This trust is built upon not only personal integrity, but openness, honesty, humility and the recognition that we each have a role to play within every social context. Sometimes it is to lead, others times to follow, some moments to give and others to receive.  It is from this philosophical perspective that was born my Johnny Bunko 7th lesson - Say Thanks, Every Day. Giving thanks in this perspective is an act of creative openness that affirms the connection that exists between us.

Q3: What’s your view of change is bad, and should be avoided?

I don't see change as either bad or good. I simply see it as the context of how we live. Every change has within it some good that can be identified. For example, suffering is a kind of change. We can view suffering as something to be avoided or we can see in it the opportunity to gain strength.  We have a choice in how we deal with change. We either see it as an opportunity or as an inconvenience. The choice we make determines whether we will find happiness.

We need to develop our capacity to adapt to change. Returning to Aristotle, I believe that this is what he writes about as becoming habituated to doing virtuous acts.

Okay, my next question for you.

Q. Why is it important for human beings to experience discovery? How can we do this on a daily basis? And how do businesses and organizations develop ways to discover?

The personal side of hard times

I've almost stopped watching the news. Why? Because the media's fixation on a moment by moment reporting of a global financial collapse serves no one's best interest. I'm not a financial analyst so I'll give you no advice about your investment portfolio. I do have some thoughts about how you survive the hard times we are all experiencing.

In early 2002, I spent about six months immersed in a single project. A start-up of a national non-profit. I learned a lot. Near the end of my involvement, the people involved changed almost over night, and I was no longer part of the team.  I found myself not only without any projects, but having not spent any time developing projects during the previous six months. I went for three months without any work. I learned that I was not prepared to deal with hard times. It is a lesson that sticks with me today.

So, what did I learn that I carry into these hard times. There are three principles that I follow.

1. Personal integrity. I won't sacrifice it for financial gain. Trust is hard to build, and easy to lose. How we respond to hard times is watched by others, from our children to our clients. They are watching because they too are experiencing the same things. Personal integrity has a lot to say about the values that we want to live by. If I violate my own values, for example, for me it is being a servant rather than being a king, then a deep conflict grows within me. If I am in conflict over my own motives and actions, then how will I be able to serve my clients well? I cannot emphasize enough the importance of our personal integrity. It is one of the singular strengths that we possess that is difficult to replace once lost.

2. Personal relationships. Healthy relationships, whether personal or professional, are a product of trust, openness, mutuality and caring. Add confidence in our competency to do the job to the professional list, and you have a set of guides for the kind of relationships that survive hard times. The ways these qualities are discovered in our relationships is through involvement, availability, and participation in activities together. Call it networking if you will. But it does not come by expanding your address book. It isn't a numbers game. It is a connection game.

But it is not simply a connections game. I make meaningful personal connections with people every day. I meet people I want to know better. They are interesting people. We have common interests, goals and aims in life. Yet ... nothing happens with the connection. Why? Because long term healthy relationships require a reason to exist beyond knowing one another. My closest friends are people with whom we share a commitment to making a difference in a specific way.  Our relationship is built on mutual work together, not having lots of conversations.

Right now, I have as many volunteer projects going as I do client ones. I do them for many reasons. One of the primary ones is to build relationships with people I respect and want to get to know.  It follows back to a simple principle that I follow, the list of activities is not a measure of impact. Change is the only measure of impact. And if our relationships are not creating change, they will languish into mediocrity and indifference. This leads to my last principle.

3. Personal Impact. Hard times are a transition point between the past and the future.  It is time of purging of old ways that are no longer effective, and the acquisition of new ways that are.  We build the future in the midst of transition. Now is the time to change how we will approach everything we do. Now is the time that we become committed to creating an impact in our personal and professional lives.

What is impact? It is change. It is making a difference. It is moving from one level to another. It is removing that which doesn't work and replacing it with that which does. We can choose to change, and by focusing on making a difference in both our personal and professional lives, we can make it through the hard times as better people with stronger businesses and communities.

You don't create this impact in your head. You create it in action, in participating and contributing, in doing personally meaningful things that are socially fulfilling. If you have less work, go volunteer. If you have more work to do because there are fewer people to do it, then focus on each encounter being one that makes a difference. Discover for yourself what this means. I can't tell you. I can only point you in the direction that will help you discover how you can make a difference.

Do this and you will have prepared yourself for the good days that are coming. Focus on these things. Stengthening your integrity in aspects of your life. Take your relationships to a deeper level of trust and confidence. Create a higher level of impact than ever before in all you do. If we do this together, then the world we live will also be different, and that is a good thing.

I'll be talking about these ideas and more next Tuesday afternoon in Asheville, NC when I will be presenting two sessions of Leading from the Middle during our Lessons in Leadership event. It only costs $39. Five presentations and a boxed dinner. A great deal. Check it out and come.

Leadership in times of suffering

Last week, I had a conversation with young woman about what the Harry Potter stories mean to us. It brought me back to what was so compelling about a tale of an orphaned boy alone in an alien world of wizards.

I find Harry one of the most important literary characters of our time. In a post from September 2007, I wrote,

Professional people experience the suffering of failure and its consequences. Yet, we are not suppose to either acknowledge it or let it affect us.

Suffering in life takes on many forms. It can come at our own hands when we’ve done something regrettable or through the agency of other people. The question                                                                  for us who are in the professional world is whether the suffering we experience has any value. Is there something to affirm in suffering, or is it simply an experience to avoid at all costs.

It was this question that came to me as I came to be introduced to Harry Potter.

When I wrote those words, I had only viewed the five films in the series. I had not read the books. Through the visual imagery of film, I came to see the credibility of Harry's leadership coming through the agency of him as the heroic sufferer  . After I read the series over a two month span of time, my assessment of Harry remained.

I'm reposting both the remainder of the original post and my follow up post on Harry because I believe that the lessons of strength through suffering embodied in the Harry Potter myth is one that during a time of financial hardship we need to hear. By watching Harry, we can learn how to lead people and organizations during times as difficult as they are now.

HARRY POTTER, THE HEROIC SUFFERER (July 2007)

-  continued -

Harry Potter’s Real Story
I came late to the Harry Potter stories. All the reviews of the films and books had misled me to think that it is a story about heroism and courage of a young boy at a school for wizards. For ten years, I could not muster the emotional energy to become involved in a story that is a children’s fantasy. Increasing, my practical and intellectual interest is reality, the real world where people live and experience life. I’ve lived far too long diverted by spin and pseudo-reality. The world we live in, I find, is filled with fantasy, or rather it is an artificial world of escapist dreams. The diversion of fantasy can have the salutary effect of buffeting us against the suffering we may experience in real life. Yet, it is when we face reality that we discover aspects about our lives and ourselves that living in a dream world doesn’t afford. Ultimately, living in a fantasy world makes it more difficult to face the realities that beg for us to pay attention.

Recently, an XM radio interview with David Yates, director and David Heyman, producer of the latest Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, compelled me to enter Harry’s world. The way they described the movie helped me to see that there was more than a children’s fantasy tale in J.K. Rowling’s story. So, over the course of one week, I watched the five HP films in order. I came away from viewing the series with a deep desire to read the stories, and will soon, and to reflect on their meaning for our time.

Harry Potter, the heroic sufferer
Harry Potter was born into suffering with the death of parents, and that experience of suffering continues through his mistreatment by the Dursleys, the peer abuse of the Sliveran punks, and then to the long series of attacks by Lord Voldemort. Of the reviews that I’ve read over the years, what stands out to people is Harry’s courage in the face of danger. It is certainly there, but what makes Harry the most unique hero of our time, in league with Frodo Baggins of The Lord of the Rings, is the effect that suffering has upon how he lives his life. His strength in facing danger and tragedy has been born in suffering. During one of the movies, Harry comments that what he is facing is no worse that the loss of his parents and the abuse of the Dursley’s. Suffering is the core of his life experience, and has made him the heroic figure that he is. As the child who lived, he lives not because of some magic ability, but because of the strength of character that comes through suffering.

This dialog with Sirius Black from the Order of the Phoenix film captures some of this perspective.

Harry Potter: This connection between me and Voldemort, what if the reason for it is that I'm becoming more like him. I just feel so angry, all the time. And what if after everything I've been through, something's gone wrong inside me. What if I'm becoming bad?
 
Sirius Black: I want you to listen to me very carefully Harry. You're not a bad person. You're a very good person, who bad things have happened to. You understand?
 
[Harry nods his head]
 
Sirius Black: Besides, the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We have all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the power we choose to act on. That's who we really are.

I find this a very biblical perspective that goodness and darkness inhabit us all, and that we choose to cater to one or the other. The suffering Harry experiences is because of the darkness in the world. The suffering has a chastening effect on him. It wipes away the illusions about there being some magical resolution to all problems. He understands that he must act. And so he does.

This perspective on Harry’s character reminds me of the ancient Stoics who had a similar reality based view of life. They carried no fantastical optimism into life. They recognized that goodness rises out of suffering. C.S. Lewis, the Christian apologist and Oxbridge don had the idea that suffering produces a reservoir that increases our capacity for love. That is what I am seeing in Harry.

Harry reminds me of Homer’s Achilles whose heroic endeavors are for honor within the community. For Harry, it isn’t some abstract notion of community that he serves. His courage comes from a core of goodness that is released through his friendship with Ron and Hermione and through the teachers who see in him something special. His suffering inoculates him from a fantastical idealism. He lacks the innocent optimism of youth that would certainly have been completely crushed by the Dursley’s. In this sense he is like the ancient Stoic who knows his duty and does it regardless of the consequences. He can never fully feel joy because the suffering of loss is with him all the time. Yet, he knows love from his friends, and their love for him inspires in him acts of sacrifice that completes the bond of their little community.

For me this is what makes Harry the most compelling character I’ve come across in a long, long time. I can’t wait to read the books because I want to see what Rowling sees in this. I don’t think his suffering is merely a literary device. There is a moral purpose to it, and through its power, transforms the community that surrounds him. Hear me correctly, that shared suffering transforms a community, giving it strength to face the most challenging difficulties.

In the Order of the Phoenix film, at the point where the Hogwart’s wizards and witches leave to go to the Ministry in London, Harry tells them that he wants to go by himself. He says this to protect them from danger, death and the experience of his own suffering. Yet, they know because they have been with him so long that their lives are cast together, and they now will share in his sufferings. It is a powerful statement about friendship and community. That it isn’t simply the bond of shared values, but the bond of shared suffering that gives their fellowship real depth and life.

It is this very experience that so many professional people lack. They experience suffering through failure, loss or the cruelty of others. And for the most part they suffer alone. Several years ago, during a series of encounters with men in various professions, I asked them, “If you were to become an abject failure today, who would stand by you?” Virtually all of them could only answer, “My mother.” Tragic that professional people who are endowed with great talent and opportunity are also alone in their personal pursuits. And it is at the point of failure that most experience the suffering of isolation. We lose a child or a parent, and people come to our side to offer comfort. It may not be the precise wording, but I heard once, something like, “Success has a thousand friends, and failure none.”

It is also what so many churches, synagogues and religious institutions miss as well. Communities that avoid identification with the suffering of others, live in an unreal world of ideas abstracted from the real world. Listen to people who speak of the power of their religious experience, it often has to do with the experience of others reaching out and sharing in their suffering just when they need it. It is this shared suffering that makes the message of redemption so powerful for so many.

In The Order of the Phoenix film, near the end of the concluding battle at the Ministry, Lord Voldemort tells Harry that he is a fool and will lose everything. Harry looks at him and tells him that he has what Voldemort lacks, and that is friends and love. And that he feels sorry for him. How many professional people in hearing this exchange will look at Harry with longing for the same type of camaraderie and togetherness?

Frodo’s suffering with Sam
The closest literary example to Harry Potter’s suffering is the story of Frodo’s journey to Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings. Frodo steps forward and accepts the role of sufferer as ringbearer. He is able to do so because a fellowship of men, hobbits, elves and trolls join him in the journey. Ultimately his journey to cast the ring into the fire that will consume it is a lonely one, shared only with his friend Samwise Gamgee. Through out Peter Jackson’s treatment of Tolkien’s mythic story, we see Frodo change as he absorbs the suffering that comes with being the ringbearer. Frodo’s greatness comes from his determination to see his quest through to the end no matter what the consequences. Through suffering and the acceptance of his own mortality, Frodo does his duty and accomplishes what no other character in this story could do. Through the faithful long-suffering friendship of Sam, Frodo is able to bear the suffering through to the end of his quest. For Frodo, this suffering remains a mark forever on his life, a living presence that eventually leads him away from the Shire.

It is not unusual for contemporary films to feature suffering as a human experience. Often this suffering is viewed as a victimization of a person, rather than an experience that leads to strength, courage and friendship.

As we see in Harry Potter, the core of his suffering is from the loss of parents. Death in our society is treated as inconvenience. It is the most inexplicable experience. Our culture hates to acknowledge our mortality. We retreat into unreality as a way of not dealing with it. Yet as we see in Harry Potter, a story that takes place in a fantastic world of wizards and witches, reality is filled with death and suffering, and out of that experience comes personal greatness and the salvation of community.

In Star Wars: The Phantom Menace, Yoda says, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you.”  This is the conventional wisdom of our time. So, we run away from the emotions of fear, anger, and hate because we do not want suffering. But what Yoda does not say, and what we see in Harry, is that these feelings are real, and that most of us suffer in silence because we are afraid to let the reality of what we feel out. Yet, when we face suffering as reality, we find the opportunity to discover virtues that bring strength. So, in Harry, we see not a person who has given in to his anger, but rather see his anger in the context of the love and fellowship of his friends. They are the counterbalance that transforms the sufferer from victim to hero.

Finding Strength in Suffering
I can’t tell you that you will find strength in the suffering you experience. That is for you to discover on your own with people who care about you. Regardless whether your suffering is self-imposed or an affliction from some other source, recognize that your struggle to find strength will make you a person who is able to befriend others who suffer in the same way. Ron and Hermione’s friendship with Harry was deepened by their sharing in his experience of suffering. Frodo and Sam were transformed through the suffering they shared. I don’t believe we can go looking for people to share our suffering. Rather, the key to finding strength is our recognition and empathetic response to other’s suffering. In effect, we must give strength to find the strength that we need.

The embarrassment of failure, the humiliation of a lost job, the emptiness that comes with the loss of a loved one, or the anger that accompanies being the victim of another person’s cruelty can become a source strength for greatness, if we let it. We see this in Harry. Can we see it in ourselves? I hope so.

HARRY POTTER - 21ST CENTURY LEADER (February 2008)

Since Christmas (2007), I have read the entire Harry Potter series. I just finished Deathly Hallows, and must say that it is delightful to read a series of books that ends well. i don't mean a happy ending, though it is, but rather, a well concluded ending.

I found the series a great exploration in the nature of leadership. My friend Tom Morris has written an excellent book on Harry Potter and its application to business and professional life.  Pick up If Harry Potter Ran General Electric and enjoy learning how J.K. Rowling celebrates the best of ancient wisdom in her story. I read Tom's book before I read the series, and I'm getting ready to reread it now that I'm done.  There is much richness to be mined from both authors.

Here are a few of my reflections on Harry as a 21st century leader.

1. Harry works as a team.  Ron and Hermione are his partners in leadership. Their communication is a fine example of how a group of people need to interact and care for one another. The caring is important because it is the basis of trust and honesty.  It isn't always easy. However, at the core of their friendship are values of love and belief in one another. This is how they are able to weather the ups-and-downs that all relationships confront.

2. Harry's character is more important than his skills.  The whole series is about the development of Harry's character. I won't give away any of the story. But there is a point near the end of the seventh novel where the choice he makes is emblematic of his character. It frees him to face his arch-nemesis, Lord Voldemort, without fear. It doesn't mean he isn't afraid of the danger. It means that he is prepared for whatever outcome results. He is at peace with himself and the world. The character emphasis is important to J.K. Rowling the author because throughout the series she shows Harry to be a rather indifferent student.  Yet, in the heat of battle, he is the one above all the rest who is capable leading.

One of the subthemes running through the series is the interplay between good and evil, and their connection to human community and human institutions. The triangular relationship between the Ministry of Magic, Lord Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and the Hogwarts headmaster Dumbledore and his Dumbledore Army is a commentary on modern Western society. There are those who treat people, communities and institutions as subjects of their own will to power. There are those within those institutions who believe that the institutions represent an end in themselves, and all those outside the boundaries of the institutions are threats to its continued existence. And there are those for whom friendship and personal endeavor are what make a community worth investing in.

What Rowling shows in her seven part story is that evil and institutionalism fail because of a lack of love. At the heart of character is self-sacrifical love. Harry's leadership is authenticated by his willingness to die for those whom he cares about. For Voldemort and the administrators of the Ministry, manipulation and control are the heart of leadership. These inadequate, destructive human motivations are shown in the story to be weaker than the power of the love of friends.

3. Harry's leadership greatness is born in suffering.  We live in an era where all pain and suffering are viewed as bad and without value. Pleasure and self-aggrandizement rule. However, the picture we have of Harry is of a young man who turns suffering, pain and loss into the motivations to create goodness and friendship. The loss of his parents, the loss of his godfather, the loss of friends, the suffering at the hands of the Ministry and ultimately the loss of his mentor are not experiences that have broken him as a person. They have strengthened him to be the kind of leader that communities and organizations in crisis need. His hard life instills in him a drive for a depth in human friendship that is the very strength that overcomes the power of evil.

4. Harry is a learner, not a student. In every instance, Harry looks deeply into his experience to understand it. He has no impulse toward academic abstract reflection. Instead, he is the Aristotlean everyman whose greatness comes in action, not in ideas.  His courage, his insightfulness, his decisiveness in battle are all characteristics of a man of action. Harry doesn't turn to books to find his answers. He depends on Herminone to do that. Harry rather turns to contemplation in action to learn what he must do. He absorbs the learning and it becomes the basis for his ability to lead successfully.

5. Harry understands that leaders develop leaders. This over worked idea operates in the series as Harry's preparation of Hogwarts students for battle against the forces of Voldemort. Their preparation does not disappoint as they take the lead when he is separated from them in every respect. They have taken his courage and embedded it in their own hearts. How did this happen? It happen as Harry trained and mentored them. He did not do this as their superior, but rather as their able peer and friend whose care for them extended to their preparation for battle.

The world that J.K. Rowling has created is not parallel to ours. It is perpendicular. There is really very little one-to-one correspondence between the world of wizards and our world. What connection does exist is different enough so that we can see our world in new ways. This is true of the picture of leadership that she gives us in the person of Harry Potter. I recommend reading the entire series in as short a period time as possible. You'll gain a picture of what is possible in our world if we only choose to put character instead of power and position at the heart of organizational leadership.

The Leadership We Need

I rarely write about politics on my blog.  However, during this historic presidential election, both from the perspective of who is running, and the issues that the nation faces, I feel the need to address some of the issues that I see from the perspective of what is needed in presidential leadership.

Let me first say that I do not think anyone running is qualified to be president. It is naked hubris to think that whatever they have done in the past is sufficient preparation for this important position. It doesn't matter than John McCain has been in Washington for a quarter century or displayed tremendous character as a prisoner in Hanoi during the Vietnam War.  It doesn't matter that Barrack Obama was a community organizer or was editor of the Harvard Law Review. It matters less that McCain, Obama and Biden have served in the Senate. In fact, from my perspective, this may disqualify them from serving.  It doesn't matter that Sarah Palin was a mayor of a small Alaskan town or that she is governor of her state, though I do think that executive experience actually gives her the edge over the other three.  There is something about making budgetary and personnel decisions that are personally accountable to you at the ballot box that teaches one how to make decision. Having spent time working with local government leaders over the past decade, I know that they work in a very complex, challenging environment. 

What does matter is judgment.  Judgment is a function of character. It is knowing how to make decisions without sufficient information. It is knowing how to change course when it is needed. It is knowing how to make mistakes, recover and not lose the confidence of the people that you serve. This requires a non-prejudicial understanding of circumstances. It is knowing that at some point your own political principles are insufficient for the task at hand. It is knowing that answers to problems do not always come from conventional sources. And it is knowing how to play hardball when you have to do so.

What I am suggesting is that presidential leadership is not suited to idealists or idealogues.  It is a better fit for a visionary pragmatist. This is a person who doesn't come into office with all the answers, but develops the answers as circumstances dictate with a focus on what the ultimate impact should be.

Personally, having read the policy statements of both candidates at their online sites - Obama and McCain - I am dissatisfied with both of their plans. I find them far too vague and based on partisan political assumptions about why problems exist. What is missing is HOW they will govern. How will these two men conduct themselves in office.

This last point is supremely important because it means that they understand that they must grow into the role of president. When I say that neither of them are qualified, I am not saying that they can't learn to be president. Both will have to do so because serviing in the Senate, in my estimation is not suitable preparation.

Lastly, both claim to be agents of change. However, what I find in the policy statements are the same answers that congressional Democrats and Republicans have promoted for a generation or more.  Being anti-Bush is not a presidential platform, and not a basis for change or a credential to be president.  Yet both are making this claim as the reason we the people should vote for them. Being a change agent is not anti-something. Is about a positive vision for the future.  Being a change agent is not something that comes from tweaking the system. Policy wonks aren't change agents. Leaders are change agents. And genuine leaders know where they want to go.

Our country is at a turning point in its history. Our next president needs to be bigger than the smallness of their individual parties.  They need to recognize, after Nassim Taleb, that what they don't know is more important than what they do. And they need to identify not just with our problems, but even more our aspirations. 

31 Questions: personal character

22. How do organizations develop the personal character required for leadership?

What are the characteristics of personal character that are needed by leaders?

Here's a short list.

Integrity, courage, humility, resilience, commitment, magnanimity, empathy and honesty.

When you think about organizational leadership, what aspects of personal character do you look for?

Here's what I want to know.

"How have you suffered professionally and in relationships?  What obstacles, hurdles, crisis or failures have you had?  How have you dealt with it?  Where are you now?"

The reason I ask this is that suffering either narrows or broadens a person.

If it narrows, they have taken that suffering and turned into bitterness. They see themselves as victims. Sure we can all claim victim status in some way. The way of the victim is not out, but into a world of bitterness and self-deception.

Suffering can broaden a person. We can learned from it, grow from it, and find wisdom and perspective from it. In so doing, we become better equipped to deal with ambiguity in business.

As Nietzsche wrote, "What does not kill me, makes me stronger." This is a mindset that is not easily acquired. It means that we must look into ourselves and see what it is that I can control, deal with it and place the rest at an emotional distance.

How many times in our professional lives have we suffered the loss of an important contract or the betrayal of a colleague? How many times have we suffered from the deceitfulness of others or simply their incompetence?

In other words, what we must understand related to suffering and our personal character is that our lives are indelibly connected to others. We don't live in isolation. We may suffer, be victimized by their actions, but we choose whether to act the victim.  The kind of character that triumphs in those situations is the kind that takes each day as a lesson in the school of life, and transforms that lesson into wisdom to be applied the next day.

How can this kind of character be developed in people in the workplace?

It starts at the top. It is learned by example and commitment.

The Dark Knight of the Soulless

Spoiler alert!

With the advent of The Dark Knight, I can safely say that post-modernism has reached its zenith in film. 

The film is a masterpiece of the filmmaking art. It is a narrative of stunning ambiguity with a collection of heroes, villains and anti-heroes whose lack of individualism is a picture of our world at its darkest.

What I mean is that we live in a time where personal identity has become submerged in the superficiality of celebrity morality plays and fashion status. We now live in a time where people live serial identities, seeking authenticity and truth in a social landscape that lacks a ground for it.

I heard recently a comment that the old cultural forms have a difficult time finding traction today because social class distinctions have given way to fashion and cultural status as the driving interpreters of society, and of personal identity.

At the heart of The Dark Knight is a tripartite relationship between Batman, The Joker and the new DA Harvey Dent. As my friend and comic book philosopher, Tom Morris (see Superheroes and Philosophy: Truth, Justice, and the Socratic Way, a book that Tom and his son Matt, a filmmaker, co-edited.) commented to me this morning: There is a theme running through comic books and Batman in particular, that these heroes, villains and anti-heroes need their counterpart to be complete. This is an important theme in The Dark Knight.

The Joker, magnificently played by Heath Ledger, needs Batman as his alter-ego in order for his mad genius to be seen for the evil greatness that it is. Ledger's Joker may be the greatest villain ever on film. What makes him such is his total amorality. He has nothing to lose, and therefore is totally free to wreck destruction in ways that highlight his sociopathic personality. Here is one moral lesson about freedom that is worth reflecting on.

Batman on the other hand needs the crusading hero DA Harvey Dent to become the hero that Gotham City can believe in. Batman, the alter-ego of Bruce Wayne, does good by being bad, simply put. He knows that unless a true hero emerges, he will go further and further into amoral destructiveness to rid Gotham City of crime, avenging the death of his parents, and becoming more unhinged from reality, and closer to the person of The Joker.

Harvey Dent is a talented, ambitious district attorney who decides to take on the mob.  To me, in one viewing, it was not clear to me whether his ambition to beat the mob is noble or self-serving. This ambiguity in my mind is due to Dent's practice of flipping a two headed silver dollar piece to make his decisions. This lack of core set of principles ultimately is his undoing as he takes on the persona of Harvey Two-Face after his burning by The Joker.  Dent's relationship to Batman is complicated by his romance with Bruce Wayne's childhood girlfriend, Rachel Dawes. Bruce Wayne becomes his political benefactor to thrust Dent into the role of Gotham City's hero, the hero that Batman can never be.

In the end, The Joker is defeated, Dent is dead, and Batman disappears into the night to take up his crusade to rid Gotham City of crime. He lives with the ambiguity of doing good as a hunted vigilante.

When I left the theater, I was disturbed by what I saw. It wasn't the violence or even the amorality. It was something deeper. Joker in his madness was the only character who logically acted from a clear set of principles. He was consistent and clear as a character. Batman/Bruce Wayne and Harvey Dent came off as characters without a clear sense of what their principled core might be. Batman's vigilantism and Dent's crusader persona are masks hiding the ambiguity that resides at the core of their identities. Is Bruce Wayne looking for who he is through Batman's crusade to avenge his parents' deaths? Is Harvey Dent, like many in the political sphere, looking for affirmation through the characterization of being a hero or savior?

In the end, what we know is that The Joker in his sociopathic amorality was no match for Batman's incorruptibility. That Harvey Dent's heroism was a sham masking a personal character that was corruptible. And that the true heros were the men and woman, criminal and non, on the two ferries who walked to the brink of pulling the trigger and did not, believing to do so was wrong, accepting their imminent death sentence that did not come. 

We live at the intersection of two era's. An older one where values and ethics became icons held up as the pillars of society's institutions, yet rarely upheld in behavior and practice. And a new one where there is no ground for determining good and evil, no objective basis for identity, no certainty, only people in real and virtual relationships with a shared experience of ambiguity. 

Are these our only choices? I don't think so. Our choices are determined by not only what we value, but also what we are committed to creating. Is Gotham City the world as I know it?  In part yes, and yet, everyday I encounter people who live intentionally quiet, humble lives that are heroic in their own way. They are the people on the ferries who will walk off, go home, fix dinner, write a check to the United Way and spend 24 hours walking in their communities Relay For Life.  They are the people who adopt autistic and physically handicapped children from around the world, bringing them into a home of love. They are the people who move to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and start organizations to rebuild communities where they are and will ever be outsiders.

Ambiguity is a choice. It is not a given. You and I can choose to be someone without an alter-ego to complete us. This is where personal strength is found. To be able to stand when all else is failing apart.  This is what was so disappointing about Harvey Dent's turn of character. He lacked that inner core of resilience to face the horror of his loss and of his physical deformity. As I told my son as we walked to the car after the show, I was disappointed, because I never saw Dent as the hero Gotham City needed. Yet he was simply a plot device in Batman's ongoing narrative of vengence and self-discovery. The real hero, along with the citizens, was quiet Commissioner Gordon, who put himself in harm's way so that the progression of events to their denoument could take place. In reality, he is the better foil to Batman, and I'm glad that he has lived to see another day.

If Persistence beats Talent, then why aren't we creating Persistence departments?

I listened to Dan Pink's teleconversation about his new book, The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Need from within the mental context of thinking about talent. One of Johnny's lessons is that Persistence Trumps Talent.  I agree.

Here's the question. Why don't we emphasis persistence more than talent?

The simple answer seems to be that talent is quantifiable and persistence isn't . Persistence is a function of character, and talent a function of ability.

When I think of persistence, it reminds of the moment in the film, Miracle, about the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team. The sequence you see in this scene from the film is the turning point in the story. The memorable line is "You don't have enough talent to win on talent alone." Watch and see.

Persistence is both effort and mindset. It is a hard thing to create in other people, as we see in this clip.

Yes, You CAN

All of us have hurdles to over come in our lives. Some of us try harder than others. Some of us have more talent, more physical ability, more intelligence, better social upbringing, greater wealth, or are just cooler than other people. Still there are obstacles in life that have to be crossed. I face them just like you do. 

It is easy to fall into the trap of self-pity. You are lonely, not where you thought you'd be, and not really clear about what you have to do to get beyond where you are right now. So, you slip into a more passive, reactive phase, and it takes longer to overcome, or you settle for less, and in your heart of hearts, you know that you quitting, and you hate yourself for it.

If you haven't experienced this, then either you are in denial, or your goals in life are so shallow and mediocre, that achievement is not in your vocabulary. If are experiencing this now, then it is time to wake up and see what the possibilities are.  Take a look at this video.

There are many more Team Hoyt videos out there. I first encountered them at Garr Reynolds blog. Check them out.

Rick and Dick's motto is "Yes, You Can." They prove that it is true.  It just goes to show that attitude and supportive relationships are vital to our successfully overcoming the obstacles that confront us.

Where do you find supportive relationships like Dick, the father to Rick, the son? It is rather counter-intuitive. You find someone to support, and it will return to you as support. The example of Dick Hoyt is the example of love and sacrifice for another. It happens to be his son, but it could be someone else or group of people.

Obviously, the example of Team Hoyt is within the context of a family. But let's speculate on what it would be for the leader of a business to act as Dick Hoyt does. How would you characterize his type of leadership? Obviously, the two of them together are men of impact.  How could the image of Dick pushing Rick through the crowd to the finish of the Ironman Triathalon not influence you?

So, what does it mean for leaders to lead in this way?  This is what I ask when I see someone whose spirit of sacrifice and generosity touches so many people. Why isn't this what we think of when we think of organizational leadership?  I can find all sorts of excuses, but no reasons. 

Imagine with me if the spirit of Team Hoyt, that partnership of shared effort and sacrifice, were the spirit of your company.  Imagine the effort your staff would give each day. Imagine the lines of people who cheer you on as your clients and vendors.  Imagine the enjoyment of going to work each day.  Imagine the life you would have if this were the kind of leadership you brought to the office everyday.

It is one thing to produce good numbers each quarter. It is another to create a business that produces good people for a lifetime.  For me these are the questions that open me up to the possibilities that have never been explored.  Let me end with one of the Hoyt's videos.