Whisper, the Heart

Angeles Arrien, a cultural anthropologist and famous master storyteller, exorts her readers to "pay attention to what has true heart and meaning."

No matter how many times I read that I seem to forget it. Usually when I need it the most, in the face of adversity, the daily challenges, the ups and downs of life, I go mental.  

We all do it.

Going mental is the safe route.  That's what the mind is there to do, sift through our experiences, our thoughts, make sense of the environment, analyze, compare, and conclude. It throws up solutions at an extraordinary pace, leaving us blinded by our mental superhighway.

And all the while, the heart remains still. It waits, sometimes a really long time. It doesn't speak in words; the language of the heart is more subtle and nuanced. The heart is like the blade of grass that pushes up and cracks the concrete sidewalk. It's insistent, patient, and ever present.

If there was a theme this week in my coaching practice it would be resisting the whisper of the heart. I would ask a client, how does that feel? "Um, well, I think ..."

Deep breathe, how does it feel?

That breathe is the distance between the mind and the heart. It can be a second or a million seconds. If you are patient, if you stalk your feelings, your mind will calm down, enough, for you to hear a soft whisper.

Don't miss it.  The whisperings of the heart tell us what is true, and good, and beautiful in our lives.

Death and Change

Sometimes when I sit down to write this blog the themes of the week are so strong that the post really writes itself.  This is one such week.

I will acquaint you with a concept that is well known in the wisdom teachings but rarely is it ever discussed in polite society:  Everything dies.  No exceptions.

I read a statistic that the average life span of a company in the US is 40 - 50 years.  Companies die, for lots of reasons.  Market forces, product innovation, cash flow, fraud, you name it, the dis-eases that can afflict a corporation are as numerous as the ones that can and do afflict human beings.  There is a life death life cycle for everything. 

Now this alone is not a truly remarkable fact, but it does set the groundwork for something that is remarkable - collectively, we pretend the opposite, we pretend that everything lives, forever.  We know that is not a true statement, but we ignore it.

Because death feels so uncontrollable, so nasty.  There is grief and sorrow, and fear, as when our colleagues are let go or when a division gets disbanded. Try talking to an entrepreneur about retirement and succession planning.  I actually had one executive say to me, "I don't need to plan, I'm gonna live forever."  He had a smile on his face, but you know what they say about all things said in jest, right?

We do alot of damage when we don't acknowledge the little and big deaths in our lives.  Many employees who have been notified that they will be let go on a precise day, report feeling shunned by colleagues.  "People just exiled me, stopped talking to me outright in some cases.  I felt like vermin."

We've all done it.

The wisdom teachings tell us - Death always takes its due.  So let it, and be done.  Here is an example of giving Death her due.  We are coming up on the famous Day of the Dead. Many Mexican friends of mine will be honoring death and their departed by placing on the grave of a departed love one all the things they loved in life.  A stroll through a cemetery can be a bit amusing as you pass by bottles of scotch, tobacco, and pictures of scantily clad women!  

As leaders, when a death of any magnitude occurs, pause, find the ways to acknowledge your own feelings, and let others do the same. Say the hard thing, express the difficult emotions.  Let it go. 

Death is inevitable and uncontrollable, so that makes life unpredictable and absolutely precious.  A cliche for sure - but it's worth saying again, carpe diem. 

To Stand Alone and Risk Looking Ridiculous

When I had some medical challenges earlier this year and had to have surgery, I wasn't worried, not at first.  I'd put away money for just such a thing.   Like a good soldier, I had my surgery, recovered, and went back to work.

It was while I was building my clientele back that I understood for the first time that I had crossed some invisible line.  I realized that:

• I do coach my clients, but I can not define myself as simply a coach, not anymore
• I do consult with my clients but I would never want to be classified with the likes of the McKinsey's
• What I do and how I do it is very different than anything that has been tried in the past, and
• I've gone to the very edge of my comfort, that place on the ancient maps that says, "Beyond here th'er be dragons!"

In the midst of this discomforting insight, a family member asked me, "Why?  Why do you keep going? You don't have anything to prove. It wouldn't be a failure.  Just let it go.  Come back to the East Coast.  Get a job here, any job."

In an instant, every moment I have ever failed flashed through my head and with brilliant searing clarity, I realized that failure wasn't even possible. 

The secret is out.  MacGregor, Schein, Csikszentmihalyi, they started it.  And these leaders, all have lead the way: Tony Hsieh, John Mackey, Tim Ferriss, George Zimmer, Roxanne Emmerich, Tony Schwartz, Stephen M. Covey, Christine Comaford-Lynch, Keith Ferrazzi, Bill George, Hazel Henderson, Sarano Kelley, Tim Sanders, Casey Sheahan , Vicki Robin, Shai Agassi, Ping Fu, Lance Secretan, Tami Simon, Randy Komisar, Chip Conley, Juanita Brown, Richard Barrett, Lisa Nirell, Srikumar Rao, Bo Burlingham, Bettie Spruill, Paul Spiegelman, Marcia Wieder, Alan Gregerman, Kellie McElhaney, Chester Elton, Monika Broecker, Ari Weinzweig, Ahmed Rahim, Jeff Hayzlett, Simon Sinek, Raj Sisodia.

And me! I have added my piece - Transforming the human side of enterprise is one of the four components of creating sustainability.  People, planet, profit and purpose, the quadruple bottom line, all connected. 

Failure isn't possible simply because I am in too much good company. But something else nagged at me.  Why don't I just quit?  And the answer came:

.... because I'm still afraid.

In 1999, I raised my hand timidly at Columbia Business School and asked my professors, "When do we get to learn about helping people to be better performers and to be happier at work?"

Complete silence.  Then one of the academic supervisors said, "HR is next semester."  Everyone laughed. Except me. I didn't get it.  Where were the 'people' people? But, I tucked my head and went back to coloring inside the lines.

It's been twelve years since that day.  And I've picked at this scab every day, chipping away at the idea that how people work in a business is just as important if not more important than how the business itself works. 

I've heard it said that 'to stand alone and risk looking ridiculous' is the measure of a true leader. Until last Thursday I was uncertain of my leadership status.  

At the Boeing Auditorium at the University of Washington, I stood alone and said, "Ten years from now, not a single company or enterprise will exist without a Chief Culture Officer, a Director of Culture, or even simply named, the 'people' people."

I suppose I can quit now. 

Nah.

A Message to New Leaders

Just caught myself out.

I read an article about Gen Y'ers.  The article made the assertion that this group of individuals has a particularly egregious trait.  The article suggested that all Gen Y'ers are narcissists.

I kept reading because I was intrigued. I wanted to know what the author meant by 'narcissist.' And I wondered if it was possible to so stereotype a group of people.  I noticed too how irritated I was.  Now that's weird - it was just an article.

Reading further, I found no definition of narcissism.   Hmmmm.

Then I asked myself if it even made sense that 10, 20 and 30 yr olds were narcissists? Under the literal definition of that word, we would have a ton of insecure people running around, either trying to get attention or avoiding it, with lots of carnage strewn everywhere.  Emphasis on the last part of that sentence..carnage everywhere. 

A quick study of narcissists reveals that they have no real empathy for others.  They experience the world as being completely about them because they are afraid they aren't good enough. When they get information in their surroundings that would suggest they, in fact, are wrong, bad, or not good enough, they react, often poorly, not being able to tolerate the implications. Some lash out at those around them; others lash out at themselves with self-critical analysis.  Both judge the situation as unfair and view themselves as victims. 

Now doesn't that sounds suspiciously like another group?  Maybe that's why they also call Gen Y'ers, the Echo Boomers.  I come from the tail end of the Baby Boomer generation.  We were once the poster children for self-absorbed, it's-all-about-me, behavior.  Get rich, do it now, go-go-go, more-more-more.  We defined 'societal civilized narcissism.' And it appeared to work for our generation .......for about 25 years.

Then the tendency to go too far started to show up.  As in too far economically. Too far environmentally. The presence of predatory capitalism emerged. Our financial system is collapsing.  Our environment is struggling.  25% of American children are starving.  Talk about carnage everywhere.

HBR ran the article about Gen Y's being narcissists. I was irritated that such an esteemed institution of learning wants to pawn off our mistakes and challenges on a group of 20 - 30 year olds.

That's when I realized I was irritated at myself.  

I am responsible.

I am a part of the whole that created the system we have right now.  Because I lacked empathy and courage, I was a bystander as we let our natural systems be corrupted.

And, I am also response-able.  With awareness of who and what I really am, I can shift my thinking and my behavior.  I no longer wish to be a bystander, one of the 'scribes' that comes down from the hills after the war is waged and shoots the wounded. 

As a new leader, please do consider that you are response-able, too.  Lean into the challenge of change. Let empathy and courage lead the way.

What is the human side of enterprise?

I am always grateful for this question when it comes up.  The human side of enterprise is any gathering of people for a specific purpose.  That's it.  It's not more complicated than that. 

(And if you believe that I have a bridge in...:)

Let's give this a go and take a look at the parts.  At the macro level, the enterprise is the business; at the micro level, the enterprise is a meeting, as in a leadership team meeting, a board meeting, and so on.

The purpose of the gathering is the "IT" - the driving force behind why we showed up in the first place.  At the business level, the IT or ITS (plural) is to be, do or have the mission of the business; at the meeting level, the IT is to discuss objectives, goals, make decisions, and share knowledge.

The human side of the gathering is the "WE." At the business level, it is every member of the team, including the Board, and all the stakeholders, customers, suppliers, community, and so on.  At the meeting level, it is every "I" that forms the WE.

In the past 100 years, we've studied the IT.  We get IT.  The purpose of a business, the business plan, the mission, the value statements, the process and systems, the strategy, we've got reams of research on the IT. We also have vaults of information on the WE, the organizational behavior, dynamics, and development side of enterprise. We're good to go on this end too.

It is only when we begin to discuss the "I" that forms the "WE" that we realize we've got nothing, nada.  Grasping air.

Here is a clear illustration of what I mean.  Phil Jackson, coach of the Chicago Bulls, said to Michael Jordan once:  "There is no 'I' in team."  To which Jordan famously quipped, "There is in WIN." 

Turns out they were both right.  Jordan was a forward guard for the Chicago Bulls; this was his role.  By the time the Bulls were winning the NBA Championships, you noticed the subtle, almost graceful choreography of all the players, Scottie Pippin, Bill Cartwright, John Paxson. Jordan evolved his role into a careful complement of his teammates' roles.

Jordan perfected the "I" in time to recognize the undefeatable advantage of the perfected WE.

Now you understand the human side of enterprise - its domain is every "I" that forms the "WE." It is not the accountant, the assistant, the human resources manager, the head of operations, the IT guy, in isolation.  These are roles. They have siloed organizations and individuals for decades. This separateness is ending.  We're returning to cohesive, participative interaction, and our leadership styles are following in step.

Working on the human side of enterprise dives deep into how the whole person works in the business and then, with constant practice, evolves his/her excellence into a contribution of greatness. 

And that is the work I do - every "I" that forms the "WE."