Here’s the situation. It was just told to me this morning, you have a team project due in one week. One of the team members is always making jokes at the expense of two other colleagues. Everyone feels the stress, not the humor.
The jokes are really dumb, and some are dicey, just on the edge of poor judgment. No one laughs, problem is no one stops the “jerk from joking” (those were the words that were said to me). One of the newest members of the team walked away saying he would not continue with this poor quality of cooperation.
Let me know. I am ready to give a half hour free coaching call as well as a copy of my book “Don’t Bring It to Work“. By the way, did I let you know the book has won a best business book of 2010 from Nautilus Awards that was judged by publishers, professors, and writers.
The three best answers will also be put on this blog next week. So, think it through. I will also give you my ideas (you go first!).
A friend of mine, amazing man, just sold his business for a lot of money, I mean a lot of money. Everyone is happy for him. He smiles when he talks about his pot of gold, his fabulous career, yet the smiles seem somehow vacant, somehow sad.
He invited me for late morning coffee. We sat at a cornet table, far from the maddening crowd in this busy Starbucks and I heard the story under the plastic smile.
He has the money now, and he has what he never had before, the time; all that is good. However, he told me he has been haunted by memories of years gone by and he can’t get these memories out of his mind.
Let me give you the picture. This tall, handsome man is in his early 60’s. He has been healthy and vibrant. Married, divorced, remarried; two grown children, a son and a daughter and two step sons. He has a beautiful wife, beautiful city home and a beautiful vacation home in a beautiful beach community. Got the picture?
Sounds like the model of American success? On one level it is. On another it raises a major question: what do we give up to get?
That is his struggle today. He is haunted by thoughts of how much he missed watching his kids grow up, how driven he was for success. How sad he is about the times that the office became his sanctuary and everything else was on the back burner.
Not sure what he wants to do with the remaining years. His parents and grandparents lived to their late eighties so unless hit by a truck he has many good years ahead. Yet, no preparation for what to do; there is only so much golf you can play.
He asked me to officially coach him, help him find some meaning, some new kind of quality. Most of my coaching time is spent with folks requesting leadership development and executive education. This is a new and important place for me to focus; with the boomer group searching for meaning.
We will be starting a program soon that is the result of my coaching with this man; it has been named “Total Life Connections“. It is based on our highly successful “Total Leadership Connections“program. It addresses the big question of how to give back, how to make a difference, what really matters when pinnacles of success have been reached and we stand there with vacant smiles asking “Now what?”
This program will answer that quality of life question. Call or email for more details.
The saga of John Edwardsis more tragic than it is disgusting. Here is a man who has lied and lied, not just to the world, but most importantly, to himself. And my big question is why we, as a nation, are so gullible? Why did we take so long to see his charade?
Were there aspects of his tendency to cover the truth when he was running for President of the United States? He always posed with such a pretty face and spoke such pretty words. I remember having an annoying feeling in my gut that all was not right with his world and yet, and yet….it takes determination and a capacity for tenacity to even become a contender for the White House crown. He had credentials and had been vetted by his colleagues, deemed worthy of the job.
The day I knew he was down in the dirt of it was when he visited his “past relationship” late at night and on his way out was caught by a reporter and made a dash to run and hide. That made me cringe, thinking about how he would have handled a major international crisis.
Now, I can only hope he finds a way to make peace with all of his relationships: his ill wife, his children with her, his “mistress”, and the love-child they brought into the world.
This type of situation goes deeply into the psyches of the next generation, and the next. In our Total Leadership Connectionsprogram, participants are asked to chart their family history – to learn what patterns of the past have influenced their present thinking and behavior. It is an eye opening process that helps leaders become clear about what “baggage” they carry into their important jobs.
Perhaps all captains of industry, all leaders of organizations, all who are in positions of power for the public good need to take the time to do what we have named the “Sankofa Map”. The term Sankofa is from Ghana, from its mythology and means “clear the past to free the present”.
The wisdom of older cultures is that they took into account the behaviors of ancestors. There was a sense that what was done would impact both present and future generations. These concepts might serve us well in this day of instant gratification and power paradigms.
For John Edwards, Elizabeth, et al., I can only hope that there is a period of honesty and truth telling that can begin the long, arduous process of clearing the past to free the present.
Recently Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of General Electric Co’s NBC Universal Entertainment, told PBS interviewer Charlie Rose: “It’s the sign of a leaderto step up and say you know when something’s not working, and have the guts to reverse it”.
By the end of the interview, it was questionable whether Zucker, like Conan O’Brien, would be fired. That is the way we work. Take risks, win and get the equivalent of an Oscar. Lose, and get the boot!
Is there a better way? Can there be a middle ground where what is learned when risk- taking fails gets dissected, and gives those in the loop a chance to reform their thoughts and actions in a more positive way?
What is so often the case is that the “loser” is so busy defending what has happened and is feeling the heatwaves of being under constant attack, there is no time to learn from what has been going on.
As a culture, we are so addicted to winning, and accept that as the only way. We lose, yes – lose both sight of the value of the down side of risk taking, as well as the human cost of defending, explaining and justifying behavior.
Jeff Zucker may be in a stagnant time in his career. He may be used up in his CEO role. On the other hand, he may well be in a fertile time of learning from the mess and come up with some real and juicy ideas that will get NBC out of the doldrums. If he is fired, he will lose and so will whoever replaces him. There is always backlash where the pendulum often swings to the opposite side. Thus, conservative, risk adverse individuals often follow the risk takers and progress is paralyzed.
So, NBC, a paraphrase from the song “Give peace a chance”, think about it and “Give Jeff a chance”.
In today’s Managing Leadership blog, there are some fascinating thoughts about how everything is connected; who we are, what we do and which elements – physical or psychic – drive our behavior.
These are important concepts that too often are left in the dirt of the road as executive leadership programszero in on strategies and financials. Once we begin to ask the questions of what connects us, regardless of the type of business we run, the place in the world we live, the secondary customs and traditions we follow, then we can make great progress in looking at the baseline of what work means and why we work.
What we do know is that work is one if the most socially acceptable and constructive ways for people to spend the major portion of the day. Is it merely to pay the mortgage or find ways to fund weekend pleasures?
From observation of employee behavior, along with psychological and sociological research, one human universal becomes clear. Humans do not thrive on mindless and consistent pleasure, which gets boring. What humans thrive on is challenge.
Think about the most successful reality shows. They are about winning the amazing race, creating great recipes, losing tons of weight. In every program, we cheer for those who can overcome obstacles and learn to live a more rewarding life.
It is the same at work. When you hear co-workers engaged and enthused with their day-at-the-office, it is because they have met a challenge, found a creative solution, learned something new about themselves.
All leadership development programsneed to include a module on defining and discussing human universals. Since there is ample evidence that individuals, regardless of business title and position, all seek meaningful activities and relationships, then let’s spend time making activities and relationships at work match our basic human needs and desires.
Lots of buzz about Tiger Woods and a party girl coming to the surface after the car crash on Thanksgiving. What does it mean to you and to me? Does it really matter if he is having an affair? Does it matter that he won’t talk to the police? Does it matter that Nike is standing by their guy?
All of this will swirl for a week or two and then fall into that mysterious void where old stories go as new ones emerge. One thing we know is that Tiger is a great golf player. Beyond that what are his virtues? Have we ever voted for him to be an exemplary leader? Do we really all want our kids to be like him? Is it all about money and recognition?
Maybe this is the time for us to all exhale and really think about the role models we want to offer the younger generations. Maybe it is time for leadership development programsto do a deep dive into what makes someone a leader rather than just a “talking head” for sports stuff, clothing stuff or cars.
We have become so boringly superficial about what we want our kids to emulate that other than “things”, we have little to value. If Tiger had been the same great golf player and had not made a boatload of money would we still be mesmerized by his style?
As an executive coachand family therapist, it was not difficult to put together the implications of slamming into a tree at 2:30 am. It sounded like a family feud with some guilt and sadness sprinkled into the mix.
So, how much do we need to know? What will make us feel complete with this incident? How many magazine covers will it take till we are saturated with Tiger and his troubles? And, what would it mean if Tiger Woods came forward and said “Yes, we are having some marital issuesand are in the process of getting help to find a better way”?
Positive role models are human beings who have learned to tell the truth in a way that helps us all see a better path from a difficult situation. That‘s where real leadership shows up. In our Total Leadership Connections program we teach that telling the truth is a high art form. It takes discipline and practice in our culture that is prone to either hide or embellish what is really going on. What we teach is that telling the truth is not spilling your guts. We also teach that it is not running away from a situation so that rumors and innuendos languish in dark places.
So, let’s hope one of Tiger’s ‘handlers’ helps him find the courage to say simply, “Yes, we have problems and we are working on them”.
That would be a leader I would want to suggest my kids and grandchildren take seriously beyond just a super skill with a golf club.
I was in a discussion with a colleague about the key drivers for leadership success and what core elements in leadership developmentwould make the greatest long term difference.
Think about it for a minute; what would you say is the #1 factor for success. I want to underline, long term success. What does it take to get to the top? I want to underline, to get to the top and stay there!
We have seen so many CEO’s topple from their positions in maybe, two years. And often when they fall, they fall hard with a long list of things that were done poorly or not done at all. Most of the CEO’s who are no longer CEO’s were good strategic thinkers and had excellent business knowledge. So what was lacking?
Why these skills are so critical is that they are the ones that help people work through the tough issues and come out the other side with little damage. It is the discomfort that takes place when decisions are made that can stall a team, even a highly skilled team, and where there is often sabotage and office politics.
So, allleadership development programsneed to focus on the systemic aspect of group interactions and how to be a leader able to let conflict resolve without angry losers and ego-bound winners.
Communicationskills are so much more than simply saying what you need to say in a clear and concise way. It is about being a master weaver and helping the interpersonal communications become a masterpiece of collaboration, strand by strand by strand.
It was Eleanor Rooseveltwho said “You must do the thing you think you cannot do”. This is a great motto for today. This is a time to keep up your nerve!!!
What tactics have you used to keep from succumbing to anxiety and panic? What lessons have you learned from doing what seems impossible at the moment and then finding out it is possible that you did survive, you did succeed?
This fall is a time to renew your resiliency factor. Do something, anything that takes courage and looks like a “No way, Impossible” route. Here are some ideas. Take a back pack and go for a ten mile walk. Start at your front door and don’t have a plan in mind. Just start walking. I promise when you finish you will see your problems in a whole new light. Ideas will come fast and furious. So, start walking.
Would rather ride? Great. Get in the car and plan a one hour trip. At each crossroad just ask yourself “Left or Right” and go that way without further thought. You may be surprised where you end up. One man who did this decided to go for two hours and ended up at his college. He hadn’t been there for a decade and “mysteriously” ran into an old college buddy who was there to show his teen age son around. They started talking and a new business idea was formed.
Call someone you have not spoken to for a long time. It may seem like a stupid idea. So what! Just make the call to say “hello”. You don’t need an agenda past reconnecting. You never know what creative thoughts may be on the other end of the line.
Just think of what seems tough, uncomfortable, inconvenient, and do it. This is called apattern interrupt. It will get you out of old thinking and push you into new possibilities.
Go to a seminar that is out of your realm of expertise. Take a cooking class if you don’t cook or a yoga class if you don’t yog. What I promise you is when you take a deep breath, get up your nerve, and do something different you will find it easier toresolve conflict, find collaborative ideasand, if nothing else, have a good story to tell that will make you feel full of vim and vigor. So, what are you waiting for, get going!
I would also like permission to tell your story on my blog. If you prefer anonymity, that will be respected. I want to capture as many life changing sentences as I can and add this to the book I am presently working on about resilience, change, and courage.
Look, we all have important stories to tell. Every story has a part of you in it that will inevitably resonate with me. The more we can learn from each other, the better we can move forward through this complex time of change that is taking us into an uncertain future with warp speed.
I would like to share a major “change the world” story of mine: My sentence: “There’s more to it than I thought”.
My mother was in the hospital, her body ridden with cancer. She had returned to the same room she had been in several months before. They were doing more tests. That evening my brother, the doctor, and I were by her side. In his gentle way he informed me that her time was close and there would be no more test, no more possibilities.
We sat quietly and then he suggested I get something to eat. I was not hungry. I looked at my watch, it was 7:30pm and a small voice in my head said “she won’t last past 8 o’clock”. It was just a voice in my head and I dismissed it. I went to get a glass of water at the nurse’s station and returned to the antiseptic smells of the room.
I watched as my mother, initially restless, finally stayed on her back. Her eyes were closed and I thought I saw a smile. I watched her breathe in and out and then the last breath came. At that instant the women on the public address system came on and in a neutral, yet definite tone said, “It is now 8 o’clock and visiting hours are over”.
There’s more to it than I thought! The world had changed.
I was noodling around the net looking for some interesting info on resilency, one of the most talked about topics this year. We are starting resiliency workshops at various companies based on our work with pattern repeating behaviorthat gets in the way. Non resilient work enviroments lead to stress in the workplace, and an inability forconflict resolutionto occur. There is also residual “guilt of survivorship” that is almost never talked about when colleagues are laid off. I found the following video and want to share it with everone, job or no job.
Sylvia Lafair
Aug 25th, 2009
Lemonade Productions brought tears to my eyes. As I grew up my mother would always give the lemons to lemonade speech to me until I would screech “Stop, I just want a Hershey Bar!”
I have not been laid off in this round of fiscal mess. I own my own company that consults with organizations around leadership and resiliency. Years ago, right at this time of year I was told funding was cut for my soon to be fabulous job in the family therapy department of a major medical school.
I walked the streets on sunny days, the mall on rainy ones figuring out my next step. That was all the energy I had. Funny how each step leads to the next if you breath, walk and don’t panic. And I finally realized my real dream, to write a book. “Don’t Bring It to Work” with its blue cover is out there for the world to see. Thanks for the reminder that lemonade can taste great. I’m sending clip to my clients, whether they have a “safe” job today or not.
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Recently Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of General Electric Co’s NBC Universal Entertainment, told 
One sentence can change the way you see the world and that, in effect, changes the world. Can you think of a world changing sentence?