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Leadership Development: What Do We Really Want to Develop?

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

What do we learn from competition? Is this where we get our self-esteem? What do we do when we lose? How do we handle setbacks? What does it mean when the mantra is “winning is everything”? Now in the legal system, Lance Armstrong does not say he took anything to make him able to go faster, to be stronger. All he said is “I did not test positive”. Is that like Bill Clinton’s famous refrain “I did not have sexual relations with that woman?”.

We need to start asking the hard questions before there will not be anyone left who is living life for the joy of it, win or lose, just for the delight of growing and learning. Let me know what you think.

The Armstrong Enigma by James Moore, contributor to the Huffington Post.

“If you live in Austin, you can almost breathe the Lance Armstrong legend in the air. Everybody intimately knows the tale and its grand parameters. Who has such athletic accomplishments; especially after cancer? His greatness and, indeed, humility were made even more manifest when he established a foundation to help in the global quest to end cancer. We have in our midst, many Texans believe, an individual who is exceptional in character and achievement.

The Armstrong profiled by interviews and narrative in the 60 Minutes report on CBS is difficult, if not impossible, for many people in Austin to process. The arc of Lance’s story has been always upward from the time he was pronounced cancer free. He got healthier, faster, fitter, wealthier, and more magnanimous with time. Every chapter of this American tale was written with bold strokes through nothing more than focus and determination.

There are now, however, several of Armstrong’s teammates during the period of his ride to glory, who are sketching out an anti-hero. The young man they describe thinks of regulations and rules as opponents to be defeated. Each of Armstrong’s teammates, meanwhile, is being attacked for a lack of credibility, and, in fact, their own confessions about doping turn them into liars. Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis, Stephen Swart, Frankie Andreu, and, if CBS is correct, George Hincapie, were all part of a deception to use performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) to win. The points of attack are pretty easily established for Armstrong’s legal and public relations team.

But is Lance the only person telling the truth? Are most of his teammates jealous and petty and pathological liars? They seem to have created an alternative reality with their words.

Armstrong is dismissing Hamilton, as he has other accusers, for lacking credibility. The level of detail described by Lance’s former teammate, however, is difficult to ignore even for casual observers of this controversy. Hamilton, who appeared drawn and a bit emotionally tortured during the taping, told of flying in a private jet to Spain with Lance where they were both transfused with their own red blood cells, a process called blood doping, which improves endurance. He also claimed Armstrong shipped him drugs, that they both put drops of testosterone oil into each other’s mouths after a race, and that he was in the room during conversations with a controversial doctor who was teaching them how and when to use PEDs. Lunch bags of goodies, according to Hamilton, were given to riders that had earned their way into the inner circle. He also said he saw Armstrong use EPO and indicated there was a program driven by Armstrong and the team coach Johan Bruyneel. A similar description was provided by Swart to Sports Illustrated. Regardless, Tyler Hamilton either has a very active imagination or he has opened the door to ignominy for an American icon.”

To read the full article, Click Here.

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Posted in Accountability, Character, Communication, Community Relationships, Conflict, Integrity, Leaders, motivation, Will Power | 1 Comment »

Leadership Development and Staying True to Yourself

Thursday, May 5th, 2011

Coke, Soft DrinkWe all need to take the time to decide what we value and how we want to live our lives. Today I am in the last day of our four session Total Leadership Connections that started last November. I must say it is with great appreciation that I listen to the individuals who are taking their leadership skills to a next level. Many are at the top of their organizations, yet, still willing to peel away layers of old beliefs to be the best they can be. It is in their honor that I would like you to look at the blog about Coca Cola and let me know what you would do.

 

Coca Cola’s Anniversary: Why I’m Not Celebrating

 

by: Michael F. Jacobson

Cue the music; the gauzy, soft-focus ads; and the focus-grouped fridge magnets: Coca-Cola turns 125 this week.
Coke has something of a 10-Year Plan, first floated in a chilly manifesto called “2020 Vision and Roadmap for Winning Together” — a doubling of Coca-Cola’s global revenue by 2020, which says, “We are creating new strategies that are winning over a massive new generation of teens to drive growth of Trademark Coca-Cola.”

I think what that means is: “We want to sell more Coke to more kids more often everywhere in theworld.” And that would be a public health disaster.

Besides carbonated water, Coca-Cola’s main ingredient is high-fructose corn syrup. While no better or worse than regular sugar, that ingredient promotes weight gain and weight gain’s offspring: obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Soda’s next ingredient is caramel coloring, which despite the name has little to do with caramel as you know it. Produced with ammonia and sulfites, industrial “caramel coloring” is contaminated with two carcinogens, 4-methylimidazole and 2-methylimidazole. Phosphoric acid erodes tooth enamel. Caffeine is a mildly addictive drug, making the concoction mildly habit forming. And, despite the efforts of dissenting shareholders, Coke cans are lined with the controversial, endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol-A. It’s as if this drink were specifically engineered to promote health problems.

Of course, back in the late 1800s when morphine-addled pharmacist John Stith Pemberton invented the syrup that combines with carbonated water to make Coca-Cola, he had no idea that his concoction would become what it is today. According to the sanitized mythology on Coca-Cola.com, in its first year on sale at an Atlanta soda fountain, sales averaged just nine glasses a day.

Today, “liquid candy” — non-diet carbonated soft drinks — is the single largest source of American calories, providing about 7 percent of calories. According to our most recent report, the average 13- to 18-year-old boy drinks about two 12-ounce cans of soda per day; girls of the same age drink the equivalent of one-and-a-third cans per day. Fortunately, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars Coke spends on marketing in the United States, consumption is declining. In fact, per capita sales of Coca-Cola itself have declined by 30 percent since 1998. That’s one of the best bits of health news around.

Thanks to many decades of sunny television advertising Coca-Cola conjures up warm and fuzzy feelings among many Americans. But I hope that in observance of this anniversary,
policymakers and parents do everything they can to drive Coke consumption down even further. Instead of doubling soda sales, let’s commit to cutting soda consumption far more by 2020. That would be a milestone worth celebrating.

Follow Michael F. Jacobson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/CSPI

 

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Leadership Lessons: When To Tell The Truth

Monday, April 25th, 2011

self deceptionThere is so much being discussed about authenticity and it can be a double edged sword if the subtleties are ignored. Truth, just like everything else in life is good and yet can backfire if not done with a strong sense of time and place. Let me know what you think after you read this post.

 

 

 

Why Self-Deception and Leadership Don’t Mix

By Laurie Gerber

 

When I talk to leaders, I find out that a lot of them struggle with feeling like frauds. After all the work you do to succeed, do you sometimes still end up feeling like a fraud?

Recently my leadership capacities took a leap forward when I realized that I was being a hypocrite. I was telling other people to speak the truth to their parents, and I wasn’t standing up and speaking “my truth” to my dad on the subject of his smoking. As soon as I started dealing with that head on, I experienced more confidence in front of large audiences and in front of the camera.

I know another great leader who, despite tons of success as an internationally known fitness instructor, still felt like she didn’t really know what she was doing. She opened up and began talking about it in front of her classes and realized that she had been thinking that her unique version of exercise was some how “less than” other more established brands. However, in revealing that, and in rethinking it, she realized that it was in fact even more special because it was different. But then there was this other compounding issue of updating her certifications, which she also admitted needing to do. Clearing that up, she experienced a whole new level of success and confidence. She stopped hiding her internal dialogue (which we all know is so often wrong) and started telling the truth about her trials and triumphs as part of each class she led. As she made transparency her policy, she was forced to deal head-on with anything that was troubling her and was loved through her process by her students. The public nature of this type of leadership caused her to correct things in her life and to be an inspiration in ways she had only dreamed of doing “on her own” or with just a therapist. What a gift to have “a public.” What an inspiration she was to her public.

I know a spiritual leader, similarly, who was shocked and appalled to realize that she was teaching a message of peace and acceptance while regularly losing control with her young son and yelling at him. On some level, how could she not feel like a fraud? But we don’t say to ourselves, “I am a fraud.” Instead, when thinking of taking the next leadership risk, we think things like, “I am just shy,” or, “I’m not good enough yet,” or even, “I don’t really want/care about that.” The truth is, we do want more and we do care.

Many of you have a vision for something you want to see happen. It could be a reconciliation or improvement in your family or in your marriage. It could be a better household system with your kids. It could be teaching the art of breathing or pottery or architecture or law to a group of students, or it could be working with a non-profit or company that has a local, national or global mission to fulfill. To get the job done, you need to be free to lead, confident in yourself, your ability and your right to command others to listen and follow you.

Consider that you want someone to follow your lead. In order to hold your head high and ask for that, you need to really trust yourself. The first step in building self-trust is telling the truth about where you are right now. If you are stuck in your leadership, ask yourself if you have one or more of the issues I brought up in my first three examples.

  • You might be a hypocrite on some level.
  • You might be unresolved about an incident that happened to you that clouds your view of what is possible.
  • You might be staying quiet about something you need to speak up about.

When you start talking about it to others (truthfully), you are forced to deal with it.

* * * * *Dip your toe in to this process by first confessing something on my life coaching blog. Leave a comment and I’ll respond. And if you haven’t already, I recommend that you schedule a free life coaching session.

 

Sylvia Lafair Comment:

Thanks Laurie,
Good post. What I teach in my Total Leadership Connection­s Program, now in its 10th year is that to be authentic we need to have the courage to tell the truth. However, there is one caveat that I want to add “telling the truth is NOT spilling your guts”. Sometimes leaders trip over themselves because the place or time is inappropri­ate and thus they end up with egg on their faces. This is so key to leadership­, not to pull others into your inadequaci­es when you are the teacher; it sets up the knee-jerk reaction of those you are leading to want to either rescue you or tackle you to
the ground.

I have seen this happen over and over; there is an art to self-discl­osure and the leaders who master this are the ones with sustainabi­lity.

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Posted in Communication, Conflict, Conflict Resolution, Leadership, leadership development, Trust | No Comments »

Coming Together

Thursday, January 13th, 2011


Tragedies often pull us together, yet, unless we can learn new ways the tragedy sits in us like a knot and we end up judging, blaming and isolating. We have a small window of opportunity to start a deeper, more meaningful dialogue about the why and how we treat each other in an open society. The need is to understand what healthy boundaries means and how we help our children grow into responsible adults who care about each other. It is too late for Jared Loughner and yet, there are so many Jareds waiting to do harm. It is time to stand together and ask how we can all help and get a new dialogue going. The following is a call for our leaders to stand together whatever their political views and find a better way with all of us!

Obama, Boehner Face Leadership test in Wake of Arizona Tragedy

WASHINGTON — On opposite sides of the political spectrum, President Barack Obama and new House Speaker John Boehner suddenly face the same challenge: rise above the anger, suspicion and hostility of their liberal and conservative bases to help a rattled nation deal with the deadly outburst of violence in Arizona.

But what comes after the easy moment of silence?

For now, both men are stepping past the question of what role, if any, the vitriol of the past election campaign played in Saturday’s shooting rampage that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in critical condition and six others dead. Instead, they’re grappling with the high-stakes test the tragedy presents over how to lead the nation going forward.

Obama, the Democratic president halfway through his term, has spoken of his regret for not having raised the level of political discourse in a deeply divided nation. Boehner, the newly installed Republican House speaker, is second in line to the presidency but has yet to shape his role as a national figure.

For both men, the path ahead is perilous, filled with the political risk of alienating parts of the stunned electorate.

The parties’ rank-and-file supporters handle the nuts and bolts of electoral politics – fundraising, door-knocking and the like. But they also are sources of the red-hot rhetoric that inflames passions, with right- and left-leaning talk radio, cable networks and Internet sites their outlets of choice.

Those Republican and Democratic foot soldiers may not appreciate calls from the top to tone it down, though the center of the electorate, detesting ideological warfare and wanting those in Washington to work together, certainly will.

“All of us are still grieving and in shock from the tragedy that took place,” Obama said Monday, calling for healing and sidestepping any potentially divisive issues. He is to travel to Tucson, Ariz., on Wednesday to speak at a memorial service for the victims, the White House said.

“It’s going to be important, I think, for the country as a whole, as well as the people of Arizona, to feel as if we are speaking directly to our sense of loss, but also speaking to our hopes for the future and how out of this tragedy we can come together as a stronger nation,” Obama said.
How – or whether – to do that is an unsettled question among newly empowered Republicans on Capitol Hill.

Boehner has wide latitude, said former House historian Raymond Smock.

“I think he has the potential to have a very important role in how Congress responds and the public tone that is set,” said Smock, director of the Robert C. Byrd Center for Legislative Studies.

For now, Boehner is responding as head of the House, not the leader of just one party. In a conference call over the weekend, he told lawmakers of both parties that an attack on one member of Congress is an attack on all.

“What is critical is that we stand together at this dark time as one body,” he said. “We need to rally around our wounded colleague, the families of the fallen and the people of Arizona’s 8th District. And, frankly, we need to rally around each other.”

In one quick action, House Republicans postponed a vote this week that was certain to be divisive on repealing Obama’s health care overhaul. Debate over it last summer prompted threats and vandalism against lawmakers, including Giffords.

Instead, the House was poised to take up a resolution Wednesday supporting Giffords and the other shooting victims.

In Columbus, Ohio, on Monday, Boehner attended the swearing-in of a longtime friend, new Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

“It was a horrible tragedy,” Boehner said of the Tucson shootings. “I’m not going to say anything more than that.”

None of that prevented finger-pointing from the far sides of the political spectrum. Both the left and the right hurled accusations that the other was inciting violence. The suspect’s political leanings weren’t clear.

Some Democrats cast blame on the right-leaning tea party movement and Sarah Palin. She had told her followers “Don’t retreat; reload” last year and used crosshairs to denote congressional districts, including Giffords’, where she wanted Republicans to win.

Conservatives, in turn, said the left is just as nasty in its rhetoric. They pointed out that it was Obama who declared during the 2008 presidential campaign, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

Over the weekend, Obama said, “What Americans do at times of tragedy is to come together and support each other.”

The man accused of the shootings, 22-year-old Jared Loughner, appeared in court late Monday. He was ordered held without bail.

The night before the violence, Giffords was trying to show a peaceful path.

In an e-mail to a friend in Kentucky discussing how to “promote centrism and moderation,” she congratulated Republican Secretary of State Trey Grayson on his new position at Harvard University.

“After you get settled, I would love to talk about what we can do to promote centrism and moderation,” Giffords wrote. “I am one of only 12 Dems left in a GOP district (the only woman) and think that we need to figure out how to tone our rhetoric and partisanship down.”

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Are We Ready to Change Our Ways

Monday, January 10th, 2011

ChangeIt is really time to let the pattern of avoidance of conflict fall away and transform it into one of being the initiator. We need to step up to the plate and call those who are making big bucks from hatred and empty noise to task. The following is an excellent blog and it is certainly time we all take a stand for decency, justice, and a high level of integrity.

Can Pathological Politics Be Reversed?

By: Kathleen Reardon on Huffington Post

Each of us is at least 75 percent responsible for how others treat us. If they are disdainful and we do not respond in a way that causes them to change their tone and attitude, then we essentially encourage them to continue to berate us.

This is what Americans do when they listen to shock jocks and others whose larger purpose in life is to draw attention and wealth to themselves by spewing hatred and lies.

When we don’t expect support for assertions, anyone can convince us of anything. They foul our environment with vitriol seeping downward to our children where bullying is becoming more and more prevalent.

We can choose to extricate ourselves from the URPs (unwanted repetitive episodes) of vile talk. And expect the same from our leaders. First, we must notice that we’re in such destructive patterns — that we’re part of the problem. Only then is it possible to take the actions necessary to end them. Does this mean doing away with criticism? It does not. Democracy depends on constructive criticism to avoid dangerous excesses. It does mean honestly distinguishing between passionate disagreements and personal attacks. It means calling on those who by distortions of fact endeavor to turn political opponents into enemies

On Meet The Press Sunday, the focus was on ways to make politics more civil. Yet, those interviewed did not directly blame shock jocks who are spreading hatred for a living. These congressmen and senators were mistaking such omission as a form of civility — keeping the dialogue pure. In so doing, however, they abdicated their 75 percent responsibility for bringing about change. They were essentially saying, “Let’s be more polite to each other” rather than “Let’s bring to task those people whose bombastic, odious, contemptuous words lower us all and elicit hatred and revenge for fabricated offense.”

A simple agreement to be more civil will not work for long in the House or Senate. Members need to confront their contributions to the incivility and pathological politics that has become the norm — even if that contribution has only been one of tolerance.

Our country’s politicians are caught up in URPs that are not about to go away merely by agreeing to disagree. Family members in therapy do not suddenly turn around their dysfunctional patterns because they want things to improve. It’s a step-by-step process. In Washington, this will require reminding each other that spewing hatred as well as praising and catering to those who do — especially to get votes — is a despicable practice.

Learning to call people on their hateful rhetoric is a required first step. Otherwise it’s all simply a temporary papering over of ugliness that will surely show through again in short order.

For the rest of us, breaking the URP requires refusing to listen to shock jocks whose hateful rants lack any semblance of credible support. Our own URPs, being entertained by hatred, contribute to continued vile discourse. Each of us has a role to play in bringing about greater civility — at least 75 percent responsibility. Doing so has little to do with politeness and far more to do with refusing to engage in gratuitous, hateful hyperbole and rejecting overtly those who do.

Kathleen also blogs at bardscove (www.bardscove.com) and comebacksatwork and is on Twitter. @comebackskid

 

My response to article:

I am at a lunch break while facilitati­ng a senior leadership program and continue to be amazed and saddened at the number of conflict avoiders there are in high level positions. Most would rather lie on a bed of nails than take on loud mouth dissenters­.

I believe that we are all 100% responsibl­e for what is going on in this country and agree with Reardon we need to take a stand and hold the “shock jocks” responsibl­e for their ways of dissenting through hatred and superficia­l jargon.

Going deeper, we do not teach conflict resolution skills in most of our schools and most of us, as indicated by the senior leaders I am with today, never learned that at home.

We need to teach this vital skill, more of an art and a craft, beginning in elementary school and at the core is the following message “telling the truth is not spilling your guts”.

Hopefully thre tragedy in Tucson will be a major wake up call for our nation.

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Forging New Territory

Tuesday, January 4th, 2011

Let’s make this new decade one of deep leadership development for everyone. We all have a strong yearning for right relationships and community. That is as basic for humans as the need for air, water and food. Yet, there is always such a struggle to be heard, to be appreciated, to be included. It is time for all of us to stand up and be counted. If we want more respect first we need to show it. If we want more depth, well, perhaps we need to demand more sophistication from our media. They are just responders to what sells. If Jersey Shore is the best we can do then we should not expect a higher level of decency and caring.

The following article, from the Huffington Post, is right on and gives pause for thought about what did you (or I) do today to show gratitude and respect.

American Malaise

By: Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

America seems to be running out of gas. Lethargy is creeping into the national DNA. We seem beset by problems that we can’t fix and won’t go away.

First, we’re going broke. With a deficit of $13.9 trillion dollars, every American child is now born saddled with debts of $33,000. Economists believe that the trillion dollar Federal bailout of the banking industry is chicken feed compared to the coming bailout of state and municipal governments whose profligate ways have all but bankrupted them as well. Forbes reports that New York City alone has a debt of $64.8 billion, or $7,760 per resident.

The American human rights agenda is stymied by debt, with China successfully preventing even American beneficiaries like Afghanistan and Iraq from attending the Nobel prize ceremony for dissident Liu Xiaobo. The Chinese have embraced the values of thrift, hard work, and excellence in education that once made America great while we become more indolent and ignorant.

Rather than focusing on personal development, Americans seem obsessed with the lives of others. Social networking sites addict us with the goings-on of friends and acquaintances we haven’t seen in decades and the internet is cultivating among our youth the trifecta of exhibitionism, narcissism, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Nielsen observed that online social activity of consumers increased from about three hours per day in 2008 to five and a half a year later.

Reality TV is assaulting the very notion of human dignity, with millions of Americans regularly prepared to subject themselves to public humiliation to garner attention. There is even a growing trend among teen girls to get pregnant just so as to qualify for MTV’s Teen Mom and Sixteen and Pregnant, where the cost of fifteen minutes of fame is a lifetime of responsibility.

Our schools are a shambles with American high school students now ranking 25th in math, 17th in science, and 14th in reading worldwide. While we trail Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Liechtenstein, China is the world number one in reading.

American families are fractured and marriage is a rapidly deteriorating institution with forty percent of Americans now saying that it is obsolete.

Our kids are raised on junk food and junk TV, the lack of substance in the diet breeding a uniquely American form of insatiability. We eat but we’re not satisfied and we have an epidemic of childhood obesity. And when we grow up we continue the trend of leaving no itch unscratched, no thirst unquenched, rarely asking ourselves what hole has opened up inside that is so bottomless that no matter what we shove inside it cannot be filled.

But where the American malaise is most felt is in the area of human happiness. Skyrocketing levels of depression seem incongruous in a nation with the world’s largest economy and highest standard of living. Yet we consume three quarters of the earth’s anti-depressants and one out of three American women is on one. Still, the number one cure for unhappiness in America remains shopping, which explains why, even with credit cards maxed we cannot curtail our spending addiction. On Black Friday 2010 millions of Americans got up at the crack of dawn to spend, according to ShopperTrak.com, $10.66 billion on things they may not need because it was twenty percent off.

I know, I know, we’ve had bigger problems before. During the Civil War we killed each other. During the Great Depression a quarter of the population was unemployed. And during World War II we faced a threat to civilization itself.

But there’s a difference.

Previous crises always had an identifiable, external cause that could be remedied, however painfully. During the Civil War it was slavery, the Great Depression high tariffs. In the Second World War it was Hitler and the Japanese.

This time there is no external cause. The enemy is us. Americans are suffering from corrupt values. The Tea Party blames our problems on spending-addicted politicians. But other woes in America belie a similar lack of discipline that has no relationship to finance. Rotten principles are at fault. Thrift has been replaced with indulgence. Spiritual longing with material consumption. Genuine curiosity with obtaining knowledge merely to pursue a career. Being a blessing to others has succumbed to the single-minded focus on self. Character has been supplanted by personality. The loud and boisterous get attention while those of quiet virtue are overlooked. And hovering over the decadence is a hell-bent obsession with money at any cost and fame at any price.

America is the greatest country on earth, but no nation has ever surmounted the challenge of success. Prosperity replaces hard work with a sense of entitlement, a yearning for knowledge with a passion for luxury. It was abundance, rather than invading hordes that slowly corrupted the soul of Rome and it is ironically vast American achievement that is now eroding the moral fabric of the nation. The Talmud expresses it succinctly: when you have not enough to do, you do what you ought not to do. America’s sense of high moral purpose has replaced with sustaining a standard of living. But plush carpets and plasma TV screens cannot nurture the human soul.

But there is hope. No country on earth can match America for determination and resilience and we can transform American malaise into American renewal by rebirthing the values that made us great.

Foremost among them is America recapturing a sense of adventure and discovery. We need teachers that excite students about the horizons of learning, a government that encourages innovation and entrepreneurship rather than penalizing hard work, families that turn off the TV and get their kids out hiking in national parks. Passivity is the enemy, strenuous activity the solution.

Second we need to recapture a sense of gratitude, appreciating what we have instead of being always greedy for more. America has many blessings. It must now the blessing of enough.

Third, we must instill within our citizenry civic virtue, living a life that is a blessing to others. The quickest way is to establish a mandatory year of national communal service that immediately follows High School.

Americans must also foster a new identity defined by the good deeds we do and not the things we own. This will most likely come from religion which must stop wasting its time fighting cultural battles like gay marriage and get back to teaching people the nobility of a purpose-lived life. We must create communities that are not on-line by reinvigorating Synagogues and Churches, community centers and charitable volunteering. We need a national Sabbath, a day where all stores are closed and where people don’t shop but spend time with friends and family.

Finally, we need to teach our youth about human dignity and the necessity of values. Public schools should institute dress codes that emphasize dignified dress and there should be a mandatory values class imparting non-sectarian, universal values of right and wrong, the moral bedrock upon which this great nation was built.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is founder of This World: The Values Network and one of the world’s leading relationships experts. This week he is publishing his newest book “Honoring the Child Spirit: Inspiration and Learning from Our Children.” (Vanguard) Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

 

My response:

Well said. And I’d like to underline that it all begins with family. Until we really get to the underbelly of close personal realtionsh­ips we will keep replicatin­g the “sins of the fathers (and mothers)”. Schools can’t do it, communitie­s can attempt to work at it, yet, until we start teaching about relationsh­ips and repetitiou­s behavior patterns that are handed from generation to genertaion we are still spinning in circles.

While we ring our hands and mourn the loss of old values of dignity and appreciati­on, many were really superficia­l and pretentiou­s. We are the people of the parenthesi­s where old ways no longer work and new ones have not been developed. Perhaps we can begin a deeper dialogue as the Rabbi suggests. This transcends religious beliefs and is part of a national call to awaken that belongs in communitie­s. President Kennedy was able to bring to the surface that yearning for connection and commitment­. We can all be gadflies and help each other create a better vision for our country.

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Let’s Give Love a Chance, What Do We Have to Lose?

Friday, November 5th, 2010
Emotions

Emotions

Tony Schwartz has written some great books about life and business. One called “What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America” has been suggested reading for our “Total Leadership Connections” program, that takes individuals from companies throughout the country on a journey of personal and professional exploration. It is about what really matters for 21st Century individuals who leads teams and organizations in these extremely complex and contentious times. Here is a well done article by Tony on Huffington Post, to help you when your appetite on his powerful and clear perspectives. Enjoy.

Fueling Positive Emotions in a World Gone Mad

by Tony Schwartz on Huffington Post

 

If there is anything this nasty, fear-driven, dispiriting political season has demonstrated, it’s that no politician — Democrat, Republican, or otherwise — has any compelling solutions to what ails us. Even as partisan a figure as Jeb Bush is suggesting voters are feeling “disgust with the political class.”

We live in a world that has grown increasingly complex and contradictory, angry and fearful, polarized but utterly interdependent.

How, then, to feel more control over our destiny amid so many daunting challenges and so few clear answers?

Here are four very personal behaviors to consider, offered in a spirit of hopefulness and humility:

1. Practice Realistic Optimism.

There is a powerful principle in psychology called “bad is stronger than good.” We’re quicker to notice threats to our well-being than we are to focus on what’s working well.

Often, it’s an instinct that serves us poorly. There is a difference between the facts in any given situation, and the story we tell about them. It’s easy to latch onto a negative story in difficult times like these.

The alternative is “realistic optimism.” That doesn’t mean putting a happy face on every situation, which is just blind optimism. Rather it means intentionally telling the most hopeful and empowering story in any given situation, without subverting the facts.

Just think about your current life for a moment. What are you most worried about? Write down a few examples. Next, ask yourself what’s the most realistically optimistic story you can tell about the one of those situations — the best possible outcome given the same set of facts?

Plainly we have a choice about where to put our attention. Exercising that choice effects how we feel. Because emotions are contagious, how we feel profoundly influences how we make others feel, and how effective we are at whatever we do.

2. Build More Bridges

In an era marked by fractiousness and extremes, what connects us rather than divides us? Where can we find common ground? Certainly, there are universal desires we all share: a safe and secure world, people we can love and who love us, a hopeful future for our children.

But so long as our value depends on devaluing what others believe, or judging the way others live, we’re in a zero sum game that insures defensiveness, conflict and pain.

I have a good friend with a worldview that couldn’t be more different than mine. Still, there is much about him I appreciate: his generosity, integrity, commitment to his family and friends, and incredible intellectual curiosity.

When we have lunch, we don’t dwell on our differences. We focus on our shared interests. He enriches my life, and I believe I enrich his. We enjoy hanging out together. Nothing so lifts us up as feeling valued by another human being.

I wish I had more friends like him.

3. Add Value Every Day

After three years of a recession that shows all too few signs of abating, it’s no surprise that people are feeling the full range of negative emotions from terror to rage. But to what end?

We derive little value and create even less by complaining and whining, bickering and blaming.

It’s an illusion that expressing anger is cathartic. Expressing emotions strengthens them, for better and for worse. Anger simply begets more anger. The more blame we dole out, the better we get at blaming, and the more helpless we feel.

Taking responsibility is the alternative. That means investing energy in what you can influence, and not dissipating it on what you can’t.

How, in short, can we find ways to add value to one other and to the commons, every day? The first key is shifting attention from our own immediate desires and anxieties so we’re free to focus on the needs of others. Doing so calls on a capacity many of us haven’t sufficiently cultivated: deliberately delaying gratification.

You can feel good, effortlessly, by drinking a couple of beers, but it won’t last. Adding value takes effort, and sometimes means sacrifice, but it makes us feel good about ourselves in more enduring ways.

I’m not suggesting a life devoted exclusively to selfless service, because that’s not realistic. But how much of your energy do you expend right now in anxiety, complaint, envy and advancing your own cause?

What’s one very specific behavior could you ritualize in your life to make the world you live in a little better each day?

Paradoxically, the more we give away, the more we get back.

4. Give Yourself a Break

The greater the performance demand, the greater the need for recovery. As the world speeds up, we need to keep a balance between doing and not doing. By building in a true renewal break at least every 90 minutes, you’ll feel better, think more clearly, be less reactive and ultimately you’ll get better, more considered results.

And finally, at the end of every day, take a few minutes to reflect on what’s right in your life.

Sylvia Lafair’s Comment on the above:

it’s hard to push past the lower parts of the brain where fear and survival reign. It is where “Amy Hijack” lives to tell us it’s better to be safe than sorry. (In brain terms it’s called the amygdala). I hear lots of that basic fear in many of the responses to Tony Schwartz’s excellent article.
I do believe that when we are afraid or feel betrayed there is a need to let the anger out. Then however, we have to fight the hard fight of letting in the love. It may sound mushy and simplistic, however, there are enough personal stories to show that positive attitudes do impact health and well being and make a long term in our lives. Life is just one big research project anyway, so why not give love a chance!

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Leadership Speaks Out

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

"Leadership", "Fear"The closer we get to September 11 the more emotions are flying to the surface. Remembrances of things past have a way of lying dormant and then reoccurring with all the pain of the moment they happened. That seems to be what the Mosque issue is doing. It is like peeling a scar from a wound.

Is this a good thing or just a blitz of media meandering? A bit of both. However, it does give us all  time to think past the horror of the planes flying into the buildings,  bodies jumping from high floors,  firefighters courageously walking into the inferno rather than away from it.

Rather than focusing on the media bullhorns of those who want best ratings, the Glenn Becks’ of the world, let’s take time to ask the underlying questions: How can we begin to talk about real solutions and peel away the psychological blocks to truth-seeing? How can we get past the present patterns of denial and avoidance that keep us from looking at what is personally psychologically disturbing? How do we keep from becoming culturally hypnotized into thinking we must protect ourselves from anyone who seems “different”?

Leadership education is meant for everyone. It is time for all of us to question the nay-sayers and look past the simplistic solutions that have only led to more of the same. Is burning the Koran any different than Chrystal Nacht in Germany? It’s about you, it’s about me, and it’s about time.

 

Huffington Post Article: 3 Ways to Prove You’re Not a Bigot this 9/11 by Keli Goff

If the media coverage is any indication, you would think that President Obama’s biggest concern this 9/11 is where he will be photographed, not what he, and the rest of us, must do to keep our nation from descending back into the darkness, fear, and hatred that consumed us in its immediate aftermath of that event. Based on the last several weeks, I’d say the president and the rest of us, have our work cut out for us but I believe enough in the greatness of this country that I don’t think it’s a lost cause.

It seemed as though our nation was finally beginning to heal from 9/11. After the immediate, intense pain that followed, the feelings of endless sadness and sorrow, and of not daring to openly celebrate any of life’s milestones on that day (birthdays and anniversaries) in the first few years after, it seemed that our nation, was finally beginning to find some peace. Not beginning to forget, but beginning to move on.

But in recent months it’s as though we’ve begun to journey backwards, not forward, and the wound now seems more open and painful than ever. The recent stories are almost too disturbing, and frankly embarrassing for our country, to recount, but I will anyway.

• On July 25th, a Gainseville, Florida “pastor” announced that he will host “International Burn a Koran Day” at his church to commemorate 9/11 this year, an act that General David Petraeus has said will make U.S. troops in Afghanistan less safe.

• An August 16th poll revealed that nearly a third of Americans believe Muslims should be barred from running for president or sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court.

• On August 24th, a cab driver was asked if he was a Muslim by a passenger, who upon receiving confirmation that he was, proceeded to stab the driver repeatedly. The driver has since been unable to work due to his injuries and has received very few contributions to aid with his medical expenses and lost wages.

• On August 25th, a drunken man burst into a mosque located in Queens, NY and urinated on prayer rugs there.

• On August 28th, a mosque being built in Tennessee was a target of arson.

• To address concerns regarding rising hate speech and crimes directed at Muslims, days ago the campaign “My Faith, My Voice” created a public service announcement featuring American Muslims making the case that they are real Americans who we don’t have to fear. You can watch it here. (Perhaps I’m getting softer as I get older but I find it hard to watch it without becoming emotional that our fellow citizens felt compelled, by fear for their lives, to do this.)

I’m sure there are those who will argue that it is not that Americans are bigots or unwilling to move on, but that some of our countrymen are simply reacting to the insensitivity being displayed by those who don’t understand what we lost on that day. To put it bluntly, they would argue that our collective wound was beginning to heal, until an unacceptable amount of salt was poured on it. First, when a guy named Hussein took over the White House, and second when he and his “elitist,” non-patriotic buddies (including apparently GOP Senator Orrin Hatch) defended the right of a bunch of Osama look-alikes to build a religious center too close for comfort to Ground Zero. Despite much of the opposition hailing from outside of New York City, they would also likely argue that those of who share a different perspective simply don’t understand what “they” and our country lost that day.

They would be wrong.

Let me say from the get go that I didn’t lose anyone personally on 9/11 and have no right to compare my experience at all to those who did.

But I know I lost something personal. To this day, I still remain uncomfortable discussing my 9/11 story — every New Yorker (and D.C.-er for that matter) on the ground that day has one — and I continue to change the subject when curious friends and family from other states ask about it, just as I’m about to do with you right now.

But aside from that day I know it changed my life long after, just as it did so many Americans. For months I was terrified of the subway, so much so that my entire life was rearranged around never setting foot below ground. And as hard as this is for those of you who are familiar with me and my work now to likely believe, I stopped watching television altogether and reading most newspapers and magazines because I knew that I was just one terrifying, painful image away from falling apart emotionally, throwing in the towel and making my family happy by abandoning the Big Apple altogether and moving home “somewhere safe.” (I’m sure there’s some mental health professional reading this who’s thinking that I should have seen someone about this and I’m sure you’re probably right but I didn’t.)

While I didn’t lose anyone I loved that day, as a recent college grad working in constituent services in a congressional office on the Upper East Side, my work and my life revolved around trying to help those who did. From spouses who lost loved ones and were trying to navigate the complex benefits process, to those who needed help arranging alternate travel for family members to grieve their loss after all flights were grounded. (For anyone who’s looking for a way to help his or her college age kid grow-up overnight, putting him or her in a job in which he or she is surrounded by people in that kind of pain is a surefire way to do it.)

This is all to say that I am someone who has strong feelings about 9/11 to this day. I am angry that those people hijacked those planes, and also hijacked our peace of mind. I am angry that they hijacked my peace of mind. And I am angry that to this day even though I am a rational human being in most aspects of my life that I still have a mild phobia about subways that has occasionally reared its ugly head in the form of panic attacks years later.

I am angry. But I am not angry with Muslims.

I am no more angry with Islam for that horrible attack than I am at Christianity for slavery. Yes some people used the Christian religion as a justification for enslaving my ancestors. But those people were idiots. Not every Christian is. Furthermore, if I am to call myself a Christian I must forgive those who hurt us (I’ll be honest, this is the tenet of my faith I struggle most with as anyone who’s wronged me or anyone I love knows.) But if I am to call myself a Christian I also must not persecute those who have not hurt us. (I’m getting the impression that the Glenn Beck’s of the world did not get to that part of the Bible.)

I want this on the record. I do not, I repeat, I do not believe that every person who opposes the Cordoba House Center being located near Ground Zero is an Anti-Muslim bigot. I think many of them are simply still hurting and, for them, that building represents what the subway still does for me; a reminder of the pain, terror, hurt and loss from that day that still lingers, even though everyone else says that we should move on.

But, if that’s the case, and you’re reading this, then prove the critics calling you a bigot wrong by doing these three things:

1) Make a donation to Ahmed Sharif, the cab driver attacked in what is being described as an anti-Muslim hate crime. You can do this through the New York Taxi Workers Alliance

Checks and money orders can be made payable to, “Ahmed Sharif”

Mail to:
Ahmed Sharif
c/o New York Taxi Workers Alliance
250 Fifth Avenue, Suite 310
NY, NY 10001

2) If you are a listener or fan of Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh or anyone else who has been using heated rhetoric around this issue that can be perceived as Islamophobic, write to them and ask them to vehemently denounce the attack against Sharif and hate crimes against Muslims in general, as well as “International Burn a Koran Day.” Contact: Glenn Beck: me@glennbeck.com, Rush Limbaugh: ElRushbo@eibnet.com

3) If you’ve ever sent an e-mail forward to your friends critical of Islam, which in any way may have been misconstrued as condoning hate crimes against those who practice this faith, then send an e-mail to those same friends today denouncing “International Burn a Koran Day” and hate crimes against Muslims, and encouraging them to donate to the Ahmed Sharif fund.

The reason? Because our country is better than the hatred and bigotry we are allowing to define us at the moment.

This piece originally appeared on TheLoop21.com for which Goff is a Political Blogger.

www.keligoff.com

Sylvia Lafair’s Comment to the article:

Great response Keli. Here is core issue; hate is mostly irrational (i.e. burning books to stamp out fear of what, another attack?). It comes from ingrained behavior patterns that are often generations old. These “fear habits” are handed by parents to children over time. The need to project our internal upsets onto others is one way for us to attempt to be in control. Some of the pundits who speak for polarization, Glenn Beck, et.al. often had unuusally conflicted childhoods and need to make a statement about their own power, translate that powerlessness, by making others bad and wrong.
In “Don’t Bring It to Work“,  there is a method to release the “nots” of childhood, as in “am not, cannot, not good enough, and not like me” that are at the heart of the frozen comments of the extremists.
It is time for dialogue, lots of dialogue. Thank you for being at the cutting edge of the better way!

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What are We Thinking?

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

EducationThis is an exciting time to explore what constitutes a solid education. Everywhere in our country school has started. I often wonder why so many are bummed out about going back to school. Why complaining when they should be thrilled. It is our birthright to learn, be creative, explore the physical, mental, and emotional worlds in front of us.

This is an excellent article to rev up the discussion about teachers. Enjoy and you may even want to add your wisdom to the discussion.

Repeat After Me: We Can’t Have Great Schools Without Great Teachers

By: Davis Guggenheim

At my house the other night, the suspense was more intense than a thriller. My wife, daughter and I were huddled over a computer in the kitchen. I had control of the mouse, but clearly I wasn’t going fast enough scrolling down the list, because my wife snatched it from my hand. Then my daughter shrieked, “Mom!, it’s right there! See!!!” There it was, the list of fourth graders and which teacher was assigned to each student — her little nine year old finger, hunting for her name. She saw it first and starting squealing, then my wife jumping up and down (I’ve always been the slow reader) But yes, yes!!!! It was there. We got the teacher we wanted. I joined in the celebration high five-ing my daughter, but more importantly my wife because we knew the single most important factor in determining her success this year would be the teacher she sees at the front of the classroom each day.

Regardless of where the school is or what it’s called: public, private, charter or magnet, Parents know (even if the rest of the world often forgets) that teachers are what matter most.

When I made my very first documentary in 1999 called The First Year, I followed five teachers through their first year teaching in some of LA’s toughest schools. I was with these young teachers all the time. I was there with them on their first day, driving to school where they declared proudly their mission to change kids lives. I was there in the middle of the year, when exhaustion was taking over, and the hard and cold reality of what it takes to be a great teacher was feeling impossible. And I was there seeing the relief of the last day of school and witnessing the bittersweet hugs from kids whom they would miss — and whose lives they had changed forever.

It was an amazing thing to observe. And what was always apparent is that life of a teacher is really hard work. Really hard. Every day is a performance, but with a new script. There’s curricula to follow. Lessons to plan. Discipline problems. There are the fast learners, who might get ahead or might get bored and there’s the slower learning kids, who need that extra attention. Or the quiet ones, where you have to assess what’s actually going on. And after a really exhausting day, all these teachers wanted to do was collapse in their living rooms. But there are papers to grade and there’s preparation for tomorrow when the whole thing starts again.

But what keeps these teachers going every day is the impact they have on kids. Knowing the potential they have. Feeling when it happens. Seeing a kid’s face light up. For every teacher I followed, this is why they went to work everyday. They knew then, and know now it’s not about the latest debate: The curricula. Or class size. It’s not about the reform du jour. It’s simple.

It’s all about great teachers!

And as first year teachers, the results were often mixed. They knew they had a long way go — and they weren’t getting a lot of help from the outside. And walking down the hallways of each of these five schools you could see it with your eyes. When the teachers were great, the results were great. When the teachers weren’t great…well, you know what happened.

So when the conversation about how to fix our school feels too complicated and overwhelming, just think of one thing: we can’t have great schools without great teachers. Repeat after me: We can’t have great schools without great teachers.

And when you start with that simple truth, the solutions become pretty clear. Let’s recruit our best and brightest. Develop the ones we have to become better teachers. Reward the ones who are doing a great job. Recruit and train talented principals. And after trying everything, help find another job for those teachers who aren’t cutting it.

When the excitement died down in my house, the phone rang. It was the mother of my daughter’s friend from another school calling, and there were tears — they didn’t get the teacher they wanted.

Every family knows what matters most and wonders why we’ve forgotten this simple truth. Every teacher on every list for every school needs to be great. And we can’t stop until we get there.

Learn more at www.waitingforsuperman.com

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