The "Daymaker"

David Wagner is a world-renowned hair stylist, artist, entrepreneur, educator, and "Daymaker." He is the Owner/Daymaker of Juut Salonspas, the original Aveda salons. He defines a daymaker as:

"A person who performs acts of kindness with the intention of making the world a better place."

David has written a book titled Life as a DAYMAKER: How to Change the World Simply by Making Someone's Day. He opens it with a story that set him on his path.

It only takes a moment to make someone's day - to become a daymaker - and sometimes those moments even change lives as I discovered a number of years ago. I was working in my salon one day when a client came in to have her hair styled. I was surprised to see her, since it was right in the middle of her five-week period between hair cuts. I figured that she must have an important social engagement , so I asked her about her evening plans. “I don't have anything special going on,” she told me. “I just want to look and feel good tonight.”

I gave her a great scalp massage, then shampooed and styled her hair. During our 30 minutes together, we joked and laughed. At the end, she smiled radiantly, hugging me goodbye.

A few days later when I received a letter from this client, I began to realize the enormous potential of Daymaking. My client admitted that she had wanted her hair styled so it would look good for her own funeral. She had planned to commit suicide that evening. But the wonderful time she had during our appointment had given her hope that things could get better. She decided to check herself into the hospital and get professional help. She thanked me for caring, even though I hadn't known what she was going through. She wrote “thank you for being there, without knowing that you were.”

I was stunned. I had spent time with this woman about once a month for three years, yet that day I had no inkling she was so distressed. I was glad to have made such a difference, yet the experience left me with an enormous sense of responsibility. What if I had been upset, distracted, or hurried when she came to see me?

That experience made me take stock of myself as a stylist and as a person. How many of the ten clients I saw every day might be in personal crisis that I would never know about? Even if it were only one person a day, I might have no way of knowing who needed some extra attention. I resolved to treat every person I met like that woman. It might sound like a lot of work, but it wasn't hard to have fun with my client that day. It was natural and made my day brighter, too. I vowed to give care and attention to everyone I saw. I figured it would make their day a little better, and who knows, it might save a life.

I still thank my client for the gift of that letter because it changed my life as much as my kindness changed hers. When you realize the difference you can make for others, whether by spending a light-hearted half-hour together, giving them a smile, or simply holding the door open for them, your whole approach to life shifts. Why have random acts of kindness when we can have intentional acts of good will?

I choked up when I first heard that story. Then my thoughts drifted to these words from The Talmud which I believe are absolutely true:

"To save one life is as if you have saved the world."

Finally, I landed on the last sentence of David's story:

"Why have random acts of kindness when we can have intentional acts of good will?"

Intentional. On purpose. Why not give it a try? Pick a day - any day. And for that day, swear an oath to do all you can to make the day of each and every person who crosses your path. Now you'll probably never know the effect you had on the folks you met that day. That's okay. The real question is how did you feel about yourself at day's end? My guess? Good enough to do it again the next day . . . and the next. Keep it up, and it won't be long until daymaking becomes your default option for dealing with people.

There are, of course, folks that seem to be daymakers by nature. One of these was Murray Barr, a homeless man from Reno, Nevada. Malcolm Gladwell wrote an article for The New Yorker on Murray titled "Million-Dollar Murray." It's a great read. Here's the link.

Conversation:

• What struck you most about David Wagner's story? Murray Barr's?
  
• Is there a way either or both relate to your life or work either now or back when?
• Would you like to be a daymaker? If so, how will you make it happen? Further, what are some things you might do to undermine your best intentions?
  

Afterwords:

"When you can do a common thing in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world." - George Washington Carver

"When a man begins to have a vision larger than his own truth...he begins to become conscious of his moral nature." - Rabindranath Tagore

"I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning." - J. B. Priestly

"Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence." - Anthony de Mello, Jesuit Priest

"We need one another when we would be comforted. We need one another when we are in trouble and afraid. We need one another when we are in despair, in temptation, and need to be recalled to our best selves again. We need one another when we would accomplish some great purpose, and cannot do it alone. We need one another in the hour of success, when we look for someone to share our triumphs. We need one another in the hour of defeat, when with encouragement we might endure, and stand again. We need one another when we come to die, and would have gentle hands prepare us for the journey. All our lives we are in need, and others are in need of us." - George Odell, Unitarian Minister

"It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sir Winston's Wisdom

Sir Winston Churchill's leadership methods have been sliced and diced for over a half a century by experts looking to unearth his secrets. One of them is Karl Weick, a social psychologist and Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

At a leadership conference in June, 2000, Weick discussed one of Churchill's great strengths: his willingness to face his mistakes and correct them. To illustrate, he told of a time during WW II when Churchill discovered that Singapore was vulnerable to a Japanese land attack. He quoted Churchill:

"I ought to have known. My advisers ought to have known and I ought to have been told and I ought to have asked."

To figure out why none of those things happened, Churchill employed a debriefing protocol:

• Why didn't I know?
• Why wasn't I told?
• Why didn't I ask?
• Why didn't I tell what I knew?

By asking and answering those questions, Churchill got a clear picture of what went wrong. From there, he was able to create safeguards to make sure it never happened again.

Conversation:

• Tell of a time when you were blind sided as Churchill was
  
• Answer the four questions of his debriefing protocol
  
• List what went awry, and safeguards you might have created at the time to make sure the same mistakes were not repeated in the future
  
• Are there safeguards you can put in place today that reduce your chances of being blind sided tomorrow?
  

Afterwords:

"Look for what's missing. Many advisers can tell a President how to improve what's proposed or what's gone amiss. Few are able to see what isn't there." - Donald Rumsfeld, former U.S. Secretary of Defense

"Far be it from me to paint a rosy picture of the future. Indeed, I do not think we should be justified in using any but the most sombre tones and colours while our people, our Empire and indeed the whole English-speaking world are passing through a dark and deadly valley. But I should be failing in my duty if, on the other wise, I were not to convey the true impression, that a great nation is getting into its war stride." - Sir Winston Churchill, House of Commons, 22 January 1941

Sorcerery with an IPod

A great way to randomize a search for ideas is what I call Sorcery with an IPod. Here's what to do.

• Generate a play list of at least 50 songs. Choose songs that tell a story and conjure up vivid images, emotions, memories, etc.
  
• Have someone describe a problem or opportunity. He or she should provide background information, explain why it is a problem or opportunity, list what has already been thought of or tried, and paint a picture of an ideal solution.
• Push the Shuffle or Random Play button on the IPod and listen to the song that plays.
• Generate ideas from the song.
  

Here are some songs I'd pick:

• I Dreamed a Dream by Neil Diamond
  
• Desperado by The Eagles
• He Stopped Loving Her Today by George Jones
• I Wish I Was Eighteen Again by George Burns
• Sam Stone by Johnny Cash
• Sounds of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel
  
• Gentle on My Mind by Glen Campbell
  
• Cats in the Cradle by Harry Chapin
  
• Lyin' Eyes by The Eagles
• Bama Breeze by Jimmy Buffett
• Medley: Amanda/A Couple More Years by Waylon Jennings
• The Dance by Ronan Keating and Westlife
• Coward of the County by Kenny Rogers
  
• I'll Stand by You by Carrie Underwood
• Man in Black by Johnny Cash
  
• Old Five and Dimers Like Me by Waylon Jennings
• Four Strong Winds by Bobby Bare
  
• The Gambler by Kenny Rogers
• Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine by Tom T. Hall
• Suzanne by Leonard Cohen
  

The links I have listed will take you to You Tube and video versions of the songs. For Sorcery with an IPod, I would suggest audio tracks. This will allow you to create your own mental pictures to illustrate the stories told by the songs.

Conversation:

• How does music factor into your life today? Was there a time in your life when you would have given a different answer?
• Who performed at the best live music event you ever attended? Is there a story you can tell about why that particular concert stands out in your mind?
• Is there a song that has special meaning for you? Why?
• Have you ever dreamed of being a superstar singer and performing in front of thousands of adoring fans? If so, how does your dream play out as a story?
  
• Have you ever done karaoke in public? How did it work out for you?

Afterwords:

"There is a general place in your brain, I think, reserved for 'melancholy of relationships past.' It grows and prospers as life progresses, forcing you finally, against your better judgment, to listen to country music." - Kary Mullis

"Country songs have always told the best stories and no one -- really, no one -- has ever done it better than Nashville. All my life I've admired guitarists like Chet Atkins and Roy Clark who touched me through their sound, but it was those Nashville songwriters who got to me through their words." - B.B. King, blues guitarist and singer-songwriter

"The way I see it, we're actors, but musical ones. We're doing it with notes, and lyrics with notes, telling a story. I can take an audience and get 'em into a frenzy so they'll almost riot, and yet I can sit there so you can almost hear a pin drop." - Ray Charles

"Close your eyes and you can hear her even now. It's 1960 and you're parked at the Steak n' Shake in your red and white Chevy convertible and on the radio, Connie Francis is singing Where the Boys Are. It's a love song to a time and a place. And as you tip the curb girl a dime, you close your eyes, and dream about pointing that Chevy right down Route 45 to Fort Lauderdale." - Roger Ebert, review of Where the Boys are '84 for Chicago Sun Times

Nurse Bryan's Rule

In our book See New Now: New Lenses for Leadership and Life, Jerry de Jaager and I offer 24 lenses designed to communicate vital business and interpersonal concepts simply and memorably. Their value lies in the fact that they help individuals see things differently, inspire groups to breakthrough insights, and can change the way entire organizations think. They are based on a simple fact, once stated simply by Peter Drucker: "Insights last; theories don't."

An example of a story we might develop into a full-blown lens comes from Drucker himself. I am quoting here from page 160 of The Essential Drucker:

A focus on contribution (italics mine) is a powerful force in developing people. People adjust to the level of demands made on them. One who sets his sights on contribution raises the sights and standards of everyone with whom he works.

A new hospital administrator, holding his first staff meeting, thought that a rather difficult matter had been settled to everyone’s satisfaction, when one participant suddenly asked, “Would this have satisfied Nurse Bryan?” At once the argument started all over and did not subside until a new and much more ambitious solution to the problem had been hammered out.

Nurse Bryan, the administrator learned, had been a long-serving nurse at the hospital. She was not particularly distinguished, had not in fact ever been a supervisor. But whenever a decision on patient care came up on her floor, Nurse Bryan would ask, “Are we doing the best we can do to help this patient?” Patients on Nurse Bryan’s floor did better and recovered faster. Gradually, over the years, the whole hospital had learned to adopt what became known as Nurse Bryan’s Rule; had learned, in other words, to ask: "Are we really making the best contribution to the purpose of this hospital?"

Drucker goes on to point out that even though Nurse Bryan had been retired for ten years at the time the staff meeting was held, the standards she had set still commanded the attention and respect of the organization she had served so well.

The Nurse Bryan story - if developed fully - would certainly meet all of our tests for a good lens.

• It's quick: it can be read and appreciated in just minutes
  
• It's powerful: it is hard-hitting and memorable
• It's sticky: the story and its lessons will stay with you for a long time
• It's deep: it makes the complex simple without losing anything in the translation
  

Why not take a look through this mini-lens to see if you can come up with a different - and perhaps more valuable - take on the notion of contribution?

Conversation:

• What is this story about for you?
• How does it intersect your life or work at this moment?
• Is there a word, a phrase, or an image here that speaks directly to something important to you?

Afterwords:

"There are many books I could have written that are better than the ones I actually wrote. My best book would have been Managing Ignorance, and I'm very sorry I didn't write it." - Peter Drucker

"Oscar Wilde did not dive very deeply below the surface of human nature, but found, to a certain extent rightly, that there is more on the surface of life than is seen by the eyes of most people." - J.T. Grein, Sunday Special, Dec. 9, 1900

"The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion – all in one."- John Ruskin

"When you help, you see life as weak. When you fix, you see life as broken. When you serve, you see life as whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul." - Rachel Naomi Remen, Jewish World Review 10/23/09

"We should give as we would receive, cheerfully, quickly, and without hesitation; for there is no grace in a benefit that sticks to the fingers." - Seneca

"To encourage, to comfort, to awaken, and to stretch those who find themselves riding this big ball as it screams thru time in the silence of space. To be a bridge, not a barricade. To be a link, not a lapse. To be a beacon and a bolster; not a bragger or a bummer. To help bring the corners of life's lips to their summit. To be a friend to those who find their fit a little awkward in this chaos society calls living." - Vess Barnes III

The Drunkard Disciple

In a recent Warrior of the Light newsletter Paulo Coehlo, author of The Alchemist, tells the following story which is titled The Drunkard Disciple:

A Zen master had hundreds of disciples. They all prayed at the right time, except one, who was always drunk.

The master was growing old. Some of the more virtuous pupils began to wonder who would be the new leader of the group, the one who would receive the important secrets of the Tradition.

On the eve of his death, however, the master called the drunkard disciple and revealed the hidden secrets to him.

A veritable revolt broke out among the others.

"How shameful!" they cried in the streets, "We have sacrificed ourselves for the wrong master, one who can’t see our qualities."

Hearing the commotion outside, the dying master remarked, "I had to pass on these secrets to a man that I knew well. All my pupils are very virtuous, and showed only their good qualities. That is dangerous, for virtue often serves to hide vanity, pride and intolerance. That is why I chose the only disciple whom I know really well, since I can see his defect: drunkenness."

Please don't jump to the conclusion that this is a story about whether you can trust "drunkards" or not; that's a whole different conversation. This is a story that asks the question, "How can I trust you, if I don't really know you?" And that question begs another, "How can you come to really know another person?"

The answer to the first question is "You can't." The answer to the second is you can never really know another person - not even those closest to you - but you can come to know most of the people in your life well enough to know whether you can trust them or not.

The notion that it’s important to be able to build trust with others is one of the latest “silver bullets” ricocheting off the walls of corporate America. As a result, books on trust, seminars on trust, and consultants that say they can help a company create a high trust culture in ten easy steps are in high demand. This is hogwash!

There is no formula or set of skills that you can master to help you build trust with others. Trust building is a raw, organic process that consists of spending whatever time it takes to tell our stories to others and listen to theirs. And, I don’t just mean stories that flesh out our resumes. I mean stories that tell where we came from, and where we dream of ending up; stories that shed light on the paths we’ve traveled - triumphs and tragedies alike; stories that reveal not only what’s on our mind but also what’s in our heart.

Then, at the end of the storytelling, or when we’ve gotten to know each other from as many different angles as possible, we get to decide whether we trust each other or not. And, if we’ve been really truthful with each other, a genuine trust relationship is almost always the result.

Conversation:

• What is trust?
  
• How is it created?
  
• In what, or whom, do you trust?
  
• How freely do you extend trust to others?
  
• How can others earn your trust?
  
• How do you react if someone violates your trust?
  
• Will you ever be able to trust that person again? Why or why not?

Afterwords:

"Let us approach our friend with an audacious trust in the truth of his heart." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Freedom is about being vulnerable to one another, realizing that our ability to connect is more important than feeling secure, in control and alone." - Eve Ensler

"If you are to judge a man, you must know his secret thoughts, sorrows, and feelings; to know merely the outward events of a man’s life would only serve to make a chronological table — a fool’s notion of history." - Honoré de Balzac

"Conversations are efforts toward good relations. They are an elementary form of reciprocity. They are the exercise of our love for each other. They are the enemies of our loneliness, our doubt, our anxiety, our tendencies to abdicate. To continue to be in good conversation over our enormous and terrifying problems is to be calling out to each other in the night. If we attend with imagination and devotion to our conversations, we will find what we need; and someone among us will act—it does not matter whom—and we will survive." - Barry Lopez - Eden Is a Conversation (closing remarks at Quest for Global Healing, Ubud, Bali, Portland Magazine Autumn, 2006)

"We are not as near each other as we would like to imagine. Words create the bridges between us. Without them we would be lost islands. Affection, recognition and understanding travel across these fragile bridges and enable us to discover each other and awaken friendship and intimacy. Words are never just words. The range and depth of a person's soul is inevitably revealed in the quality of words she uses. When chosen with reverence and care, words not only describe what they say but also suggest what can never be said." - John O'Donohue, Beauty

An Architect's Vision

Daniel Libeskind is a world renowned architect. He is most famous for being selected by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to oversee the rebuilding of the World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. He titled his concept for the site Memory Foundations. Some of his other projects include the Jewish Museum in Berlin, Germany, the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester, England, and the Wohl Centre at Bar-Ilan University, in Ramat-Gan, Israel.

Libeskind gave a presentation titled 17 Words of Architectural Inspiration last February at a TED event. The 17 words form the basis of his vision for the future of architecture. You can watch the presentation here. If you do, and if you happen to be an architect, you will most likely find yourself either nodding in agreement with what he says, or calling him a fool or worse. I say this because I didn't find many neutral opinions in the "Comments" section.

As I listened to him speak - with nary a shard of architectural savvy in my bones - I started to wonder how many of his 17 words can help form a vision for building a more satisfying and meaningful life. And, without doing much stretching, I can make a case for the relevance of all 17. What I want to do here, though, is to take just a few of the words and share the connections I made.

Optimism vs. Pessimism

Libeskind believes that architecture - more than almost any other profession - must be anchored in an optimistic view of the future. He said:

"You can be an general, a politician, an economist who is depressed, a musician in a minor key, a painter in dark colors. But architecture is that complete ecstasy that the future can be better."

There's not much to argue with here. Optimists fare better in nearly all aspects of life ... and studies have shown they live longer too. So, if you're a pessimist ... you have one more thing to be pessimistic about. On the other hand pessimism doesn't have to be a life sentence. Dr. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association and recovering pessimist, has shown that we can cross the bridge from pessimist to optimist by developing three specific cognitive skills. You can read about them in his book, Learned Optimism, which he wrote because his daughter kept telling him how big a grouch he was.

Hand vs. Computer

While admitting that the whole practice of architecture today relies heavily on the computer, Libeskind is adamant that the hand should drive the computer, instead of the other way around. He says this because he full-out believes that his best ideas come from an unknown, unseen source deep inside him and have to be teased out into the light through hand drawings and sketches. That being done, he is only too happy to open his computer and begin the process of turning his sketches into blueprints. He closes with a question for his fellow architects:

"How can we make the computer respond to our hand rather than the hand responding to the computer?"

This comparison raises several interesting questions. On a practical level, you might ask whether the technology you are using in your work and your life is your servant or your master. Do you really have to jump to answer your cell every time it rings? Should you open PowerPoint the minute you start preparing a presentation or should you sketch it out on paper first? Should email or text messaging be the default option in your communication with the important people in your life? On a philosophical level, you might wonder if you are living a life of your own design or following a template designed for you by others or even by circumstance. On a spiritual level, you could ask whether the fundamental choices you make are informed by your conscience - the voice inside you that tells you what is moral and good - or that which is expedient and self serving. I could go on with my list, but I am sure you get the idea. You can read more about this notion in the book Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford. You can also read more abut Matthew's ideas in his New York Times Magazine article The Case for Working With Your Hands.

Raw vs. Refined

In this instance, Libeskind said he thinks of raw as "naked experience, untouched by luxury, untouched by expensive materials, untouched by the kind of refinement that we associate with high culture." And he believes that the creation of sustainable environments in the future will depend on the use of raw space or "... a space that isn't decorated, a space that isn't mannered in any source, but a space that might be cool in terms of its temperature, might be refractive to our desires. A space that doesn't always follow us like a dog that has been trained to follow us, but moves ahead into directions of demonstrating other possibilities, other experiences, that have never been part of the vocabulary of architecture."

Here I think relationships. I like mine raw or as open, juicy, and authentic as possible. I don't much like them refined or dry, stilted, and managed. All relationships? No, not all. Most, then? Yes. Including work relationships? Yes. Why? Because the more time I can spend with people I've come to truly know and care about, the better my life is for it.

Conversation:

• How are you generally optimistic or pessimistic? Would the people who know you best agree? Why or why not?
• How do you work with your hands? Does doing so bless your life? If so, how? If not, why not?
• How is a relationship either raw or refined as you see it? What is the balance between the two in your life? If it needs to shift, how so. If not, why not?
  

Afterwords:

"Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly." - Langston Hughes

“I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day, a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic waiting somewhere behind the morning.” - J. B. Priestly

"I promise you the sloth approach is the most successful life-maintenance program. So many of us waste our time being angry at our bosses, our families, our president, or even our God. The Sloth Plan, on the other hand, helps us to accept that there is no real hope for change. Power is in the hands of an elite, entitled few, and there is no reason to waste our lives howling in the wilderness." - Wendy Wasserstein, Sloth

"Deep down in people there is love and craving for the beautiful. There are many who go through their whole lives without ever knowing when they have liked or what they have liked." - Robert Henri, The Art Spirit

"'Hunches,' his mother used to call them. The boy was beginning to understand that intuition is really just a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it's all written there." - Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

"Of all that is written, I love only what a person has written with his own blood." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another, 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'" - C.S. Lewis

"Self-disclosure is the act of revealing yourself to others – your thoughts, feelings, intentions– telling your story. Another word for self-disclosure is 'intimacy'. This word is commonly associated with sexuality. But it really refers to familiarity and closeness. Intimacy can be understood better by pronouncing it as 'in-to-me-see' – a clear reference to self-disclosure. Why is intimacy so important? It builds understanding, trust, compassion, and commonality – all of which are essential to effective relationships. When you begin to understand other people’s stories, your heart softens. You find that their sorrows and joys are similar to yours, and that you have more in common than you ever thought. You draw closer and become more tolerant, more supportive, and more understanding." - Mark D. Youngblood, Life at the Edge of Chaos

Crazy Is As Crazy Does

Robert Fulghum, best known for writing a short essay titled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, is one of the very best storytellers in the world.

One of his finest tales involves his distaste of using business cards to introduce ourselves to one another. He thinks they have some utility - title, company, email address, phone number - but don't convey anything important about who we are. Further, he thinks they limit us to talking with each other about our occupations - as if they matter. For example, he doesn't like saying he's a writer. Writing - to him - is merely the product of what he does. What he does is something broader, and it doesn't fit on a 3x2 card.

Robert has butted his head against the wall of this conundrum on more than one occasion. Once on a plane, he decided to keep his business card in his pocket and lie; he told a man in a turban - whom he was certain he didn't want to talk to - that he was a neurosurgeon. Imagine his surprise when he discovered that the man in the turban really was a neurosurgeon. But, the man understood Robert's plight. He, too, was chagrined when - upon introducing himself - people began spouting off about their various neural malfunctions, as if that were all he was.

Another time - on another plane - Fulghum sought out a fellow liar, and without properly introducing themselves to each other, they agreed to lie to one another for the entire flight. The other player introduced himself as a spy. Fulghum said he was a nun. Robert said it was one of the damnedest conversations he ever had: imaginative, informative, and never true for an instant. And, to top it off, an elderly man stood behind Fulghum as they were deplaning, and said, "Have a nice day, sister."

It's easy to see how role-playing ala Sister Robert and Secret Agent Man is an interesting way to pass time in a pressurized cabin at 35,000 feet, but you only have to move a couple of clicks away from center to also see it as a way to ramp up the energy level and get the creative juices flowing in small groups looking to add variety to their meetings.

If your group likes this idea and wants to play with it, here are some things to think about.

• Be specific about what you want to accomplish. Ask: What result do we want to create? This gets you centered on where you want to end up, and not on the particulars of how to get there. A useful analogy is sailing. Good sailors lock into their destination, and then set their course. And, if they get blown off course, they don't try to get back on the original course; they keep their eye on their destination and chart a new course from where they currently are instead.
• Make sure a wide variety of roles are selected. For example, you don't want to end up with two nuns, a priest, three spies, and an FBI agent. Also, avoid typical business roles like accountant, sales rep, etc.
  
• Stay in character. For example, if a person from marketing is playing a trauma surgeon, she shouldn't simply take her knowledge of marketing and spit it out using doctor-speak. She should assume the knowledge base of a trauma surgeon and deploy it as best she can.
• Assess the results. You can talk about what happened and decide if and when you want to do it again by holding the following conversation at the end of the meeting.
  

Conversation:

• What was supposed to happen?
• What actually happened?
• What went well, and why?
• What can be improved, and how?

Afterwords:

"I've always been crazy, but it's kept me from going insane." - Waylon Jennings, from the song I've Always Been Crazy

"You should never hesitate to trade your cow for a handful of magic beans." - Tom Robbins

"Behavioral traits such as curiosity about the world, flexibility of response, and playfulness are common to practically all young mammals but are usually rapidly lost with the onset of maturity in all but humans. Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature." - Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? We make tools for these kinds of people. While some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do." - Apple Computer, advertisement

shitmydadsays

My friend Josh Klein, young hacker of everything, told me I'm not too old to twitter. I decided to give it a shot. That was three and a half weeks ago. I've managed six tweets. I'm struggling. But, I'm optimistic. I've already got 40 followers. Is that good? No, but it's a start.

In addition to telling me my age should not stop me from jumping on the twitter bandwagon, Josh suggested that I start off by using twitter as a scanning tool for new ideas. Huh? "Simple enough," he said. "Just find some really smart tweeters and start to follow them." That made sense to me, so I asked him how to separate the smart tweeters from the not-so-smart ones. "There's no one way to do it," he said, "but if I were you I'd pay special attention to the ones who have the most followers." And so I did. Here are some of the folks I'm following:

• Guy Kawasaki @ Alltop - 8594 followers
• HarvardBiz - 37,084 followers
• Marcus Buckingham - 4253 followers
• Fast Company - 39,180 followers
• Freakonomics - 28,056 followers
• Rick Warren - 49,820 followers
• Malcolm Gladwell - 41,426 followers
• shitmydadsays - 618,839 followers

Whoa! What is that all about? Almost 620,000 people following something called shitmydadsays? Can't be true! And yet, it is.

Some background. shitmydadsays debuted on August 3rd. For those of you who are counting, that's not quite three months ago. As of today 64 tweets are posted. The tweeter is Justin (no last name mentioned). Here's how he describes himself and what he is doing:

"I'm 29. I live with my 73-year-old dad. He is awesome. I just write down shit that he says."

That's it? Yep. "Well then," you say, "his dad must say some pretty smart things to attract so many followers." I don't know about that. Here are a few examples. Judge for yourself.

"You're being fucking dramatic. You own a TV and an air mattress. That's not exactly what I'd call a lot to lose."

"You need to flush the toilet more than once...No, YOU, YOU specifically need to. You know what, use a different toilet. This is my toilet."

"It's just a fucking june bug, calm down. Jesus Christ, what happens when something bigger than a testicle attacks you?"

"I like the dog. If he can't eat it, or fuck it, he pisses on it. I can get behind that."

Rather bawdy, wouldn't you say? How about brilliant? Maybe. Maybe not. Funny? Yes and no.

How about 620,000 followers in less than 90 days? That's the important question here, and in the answer you're likely to unearth some secrets to building a highly recognizable and attractive brand.

Conversation:

• Justin used just four words - shit ... my ... dad ... says - to both name and position his offering. Can you do the same for yours?
  
• Justin used earthy language to communicate with his audience. Do you think he would've attracted as many followers if he'd cleaned up his act ... if he had said pearls of wisdom from my father - or something akin to that - for example?
  
• Can you use the same approach and language to build your brand via social media that you did using traditional media? If so, how so? If not, why not?
  

Afterwords:

"If we left brand differentiation to most CEOs, most companies would stand for "quality, service, and innovation," and there would be even less differentiation than there already is." - Blaise James, Gallup global brand strategist, as quoted by Gallup Management Journal

"'Can't please everyone' isn't just an aphorism, it's the secret of being remarkable." - Seth Godin, writing in his blog

"In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the truth as he sees it." - Boris Pasternak

"The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious, from which the non-intellectuals have never stirred." - Aldous Huxley

"I have to tell it again and again: I have no doctrine. I only point out something. I point out reality, I point out something in reality which has not or too little been seen. I take him who listens to me at his hand and lead him to the window. I push open the window and point outside. I have no doctrine, I carry on a dialogue." - Martin Buber

Life Is Short. Wear Your Party Pants.

This is Loretta LaRoche. She is an author, PBS TV personality, humorist, and stress management consultant. She appeared in our 2004 Masters Forum series. She talked about how to reduce stress in our lives by changing the way we look at things and learning to laugh, especially at ourselves. She was a stitch! We laughed until we hurt. We learned many lessons in the process. Here are some of them in Loretta's own words.

"We define ourselves by how much we have to do and how stressed we are. We are now a nation of human doings, not human beings. People would rather tell you how much they’re doing. The person who’s listening doesn’t care, because they’re practicing in their head how they’re going to counter how much you’ve done. So they’ll say, 'You think you have a lot to do? You should see what I have been doing!' Now, you haven’t won yet, so you have to add physical problems. You might say, 'I’ve been having headaches, backaches, frontaches.' What a sad commentary on life! We’re only here to distract ourselves until we die. That’s what this lecture is really about: Get a grip. You’re going to die. Don’t you want to live before you die? Don’t you want to be juicy? Don’t you want to thrive? Don’t you want to throb with delight every day? We’re all going to suffer - why practice?"

"The media wants to constantly remind you that you’re not enough, that something’s wrong, that there’s terror amongst us, that your lips should be fuller. Nothing is right, nothing. There are so many products on the market today that you can’t even get in your shower sometimes."

"So much is about structure: we have to have rules: 'I can’t have pineapple until 4:00; I can only eat meat at 11:00.' Who cares? Be quiet. Why don’t you tell me about something else? Wouldn’t it be fun to hear somebody say, 'I'm learning how to speak Chinese'? How much time are you taking doing these things and then complaining about it?"

"How many moments of our lives do we spend complaining and talking about what is not instead of what is? You know, we should go up to somebody and say, 'May god, my hair looks damn amazing today!' The pleasure concept of life is very important. This does not give pleasure - to always feel like I’m on the edge of not being okay. We spend so much time being careful about what we eat, but inside we’re dried up because we aren’t getting any pleasure. Put it on your tombstone - 'Was thin, died anyway'."

"People impose the tyranny of the should and the must on themselves. So at night you might be lying there shoulding on yourself, 'I shoulda done this, I shoulda done that'; or you might be going over what you must do in the morning, 'This is what I must do, this is what I must do' - that’s called musturbating. And we should on other people, too, because the nature of the mind is to be a saboteur. The Buddhists talk about the monkey mind. The monkey always wants a banana. The insistence is to keep talking to yourself in terms of not having what you need, or what you didn’t do, or what you should be doing. Isn’t that the way a lot of us are living - we’re waiting to finally get the accolades from 'they,' so we can feel okay. Perfectionism is a lot about shoulds and musts."

"The brain is not capable of multitasking. We are trying to teach ourselves something that’s impossible to achieve, because somebody came up with that word and now we think it should be part of the culture. No wonder people have lower productivity in workplaces: there’s all this baloney going on, all this fake stuff, and you believe it. What is the mission statement? It should be, 'We're here to have fun, first, and to create community.' Community and fun would be the mission statement, and then everything else would follow."

"How would an optimist behave? First of all, optimists see the world as a way to foster resiliency. Consider savoring all that you do. Have abundant pleasure in your life every day. Yesterday’s history; tomorrow’s a mystery; and today’s a gift - that’s why they call it the present. The other things optimists do is laugh a lot. They laugh at themselves in particular, because they know they’re the joke. Everybody in this room’s a joke; some people don’t get it. Don’t you hear this a lot: 'Do you know who I am?'? When I hear that I say, 'No, do you? You must be an idiot'."

"The most important thing an optimist can do is allow themselves to be playful with everyone they come into contact with. As you lighten up, so will the world. This is because your energy goes out into the world. Everything you do is felt by others. Even your thoughts manifest an energy that is picked up by everyone."

"Get a funky hat. Become as bizarre as possible. They’ve found that eccentric people live twenty years longer and go to the doctor rarely, because they’re living their bliss."

"If you think the worst and get the worst, you suffer twice. If you think the best and get the worst, you only suffer once."

Conversation:

My suggestion is to kick some of Loretta's ideas around and see what insights come your way. A couple of questions you can start with are:

• Do you have a monkey mind?
  
• If so, what is it you always want?

Afterwords:

"The future masters of technology will have to be light-hearted and intelligent. The machine easily masters the grim and the dumb." - Marshall McLuhan

"The distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny." - Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

"The entire object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things - not merely industrious, but to love industry - not merely learned, but to love knowledge - not merely pure, but to love purity - not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice." - John Ruskin

Video:

A short clip of Loretta LaRoche

Six-Word Memoirs

There's a literary legend that the great American writer Ernest Hemingway was once challenged in a bar to write a story in six words. He wrote:

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

A couple of years ago, Smith, an online magazine dedicated to personal storytelling, picked up on the Hemingway legend and started a contest in which people - celebrities and just plain folk - wrote and submitted six-word stories of their own - as memoirs. The magazine received over 15,000 stories and selected a few hundred to publish in a book, Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. Among those published are:

"Longed for him. Got him. Shit." - Margaret Atwood

"Well, I thought it was funny." - Stephen Colbert

"Liars: hysterectomy didn't improve sex life." - Joan Rivers

"After Harvard, had baby with crackhead." - Robin Templeton

"Seventy years, few tears, hairy ears." - Bill Querengesser

"Found true love. Married someone else." - Anonymous

Conversation:

• Do you think it's possible to sum up your life in just six words?
  
• Are there some possible statements, questions, or ideas that speak to who you are?
  
• Can you think of a single poignant moment, for example?
  
• Is there a song - or movie, poem, book, story, speech, quote - that is particularly meaningful?
  
• Can you recall a time when you were at a crucial juncture in your life, and the decision you made then? How might your life have turned out, if you'd made a different choice?
• What is your six-word memoir?
  

Afterwords:

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." - Albert Einstein

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." - M. Scott Peck

“Only barbarians are not curious about where they come from, how they came to be where they are, where they appear to be going, whether they wish to go there, and if so, why, and if not, why not.” - Isaiah Berlin - The Crooked Timber of Humanity

"I didn’t have a 'mission statement' at Burger King. I had a dream. Very simple. It was something like, 'Burger King is 250,000 people, every one of whom gives a shit.' Every one. Accounting. Systems. Not just the drive through. Everyone is 'in the brand.' That’s what we’re talking about, nothing less." - Barry Gibbons, former CEO

Pattern Recognition Rules!

In an earlier post, I featured the questionnaire that James Lipton uses on his television program Inside the Actor's Studio. I said I was intrigued by it because it allowed me to view his 200+ guests through a single lens. And, by holding the lens constant, I was able to see the differences between and among them.

I actually ran into this idea many years ago. I was introduced to it by one of my early mentors in the leadership development game, Dr. David W. Merrill, co-founder of what is now known as The TRACOM Group, and a true genius in the fields of individual, management, and organizational behavior.

Dave showed me a series of questions companies might use in the first step in the hiring process; he called it a patterned interview. The idea behind it was simple: hold the interviewer constant by asking the same questions - in the same order - to a group of candidates, thus making it possible to see the variety in both their answers and their behavior. This is important because if the approach of the interviewer varies, it becomes much more difficult to get a true reading on the differences between and among the candidates. In other words, the candidates' responses become the constant. Dave's simple explanation of this was, "Put 'em on stage. Ask a question. Be stoic and listen." In my view, Dave's questions can also be used as the basis for a conversation in which you and another take turns answering them. The end result is that you will know each other much better than before.

Conversation:

• Will you please tell me what you'd like about such things as your educational accomplishments, work experience, personal interests and career goals?
  
• What is your greatest success in life?
  
• What is your greatest failure?
  
• What are your strengths?
  
• What are your weaknesses?
  
• If I asked your friends what five adjectives describe you best, what would they say?
  
• What is your philosophy of life?
  
• What is the most important thing we can do to help you succeed with us?
  
• If we were to have any difficulty helping you succeed here, what would it be?
  

Afterwords:

"People don't change much. As a result, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. If you were to pin me down, though, and ask me to give you the reasons why people change when they do, I would give you three: traumatic life experience, religious conversion, and prefrontal lobotomy." - Dave Merrill

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.
- William Stafford

East of Eden

John Steinbeck's East of Eden was published in October, 1952. It became an instant best-seller. It was adapted for film in 1955 by director Elia Kazan. A TV miniseries was aired in 1981, and rumors have it that Universal Pictures will produce another adaption of the novel with a release date of 2009.

Steinbeck's inspiration for the novel came from the Hebrew Bible. Specifically, it came from Genesis 4: 1-16, which recounts the story of Cain and Abel. The title, East of Eden, was chosen by Steinbeck from verse 16:

"And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden."

The book explores themes of depravity, beneficence, love, and the struggle for acceptance, greatness, and the capacity for self-destruction. Steinbeck said of it:

"It has everything in it I've been able to learn about my craft in all these years. I think everything else I've written has been, in a sense, practice for this."

In Chapter 13, Steinbeck described the condition of the world. He said:

"There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy and confused."

He went on to say these conditions prompted him to ask himself three important questions. These same questions are worth asking ourselves today.

Conversation:

• What do I believe in?
• What must I fight for?
• What must I fight against?

Afterwords:

"The hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross, which bridge to burn." - David Russell

"I think when people have illustrated the Bible, most of them have been devout Christians. Because they're devout Christians they can't separate themselves from the work. They get mired in piety, so they can't see the darkness. They only see the light of salvation. But if you don't have the darkness to contrast with the light, then what are you offering but cotton candy for Sunday school children? I think that some of the images in this Bible will be disturbing to a lot of people. The Bible is a very disturbing book." – Barry Moser, illustrator

"Lord, give to us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for - because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything." - Reverend Peter Marshall, a prayer offered at the opening session of the U.S. Senate on April 18, 1947

"Stop leaving and you will arrive. Stop searching and you will see. Stop running away and you will be found." - Lao Tzu

"Belief? What do I believe in? I believe in sun. In rock. In the dogma of the sun and the doctrine of the rock. I believe in blood, fire, woman, rivers, eagles, storm, drums, flutes, banjos, and broom-tailed horses…" - Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

"It is immensely moving when a mature man – no matter whether old or young in years – is aware of a responsibility for the consequences of his conduct and really feels such responsibility with heart and soul. He then acts by following an ethic of responsibility and somewhere he reaches the point where he says: 'Here I stand; I can do no other.'" - Max Weber

Challenging Convention

Gary Hamel is one of the world's leading experts on strategy and innovation. He has penned countless articles and several tomes on these topics, including his latest, The Future of Management.

At The Masters Forum one year, Hamel talked of how convention stifles innovation. To illustrate, he focused on banks and asked - rhetorically - what might change in terms of day-to-day operations and/or strategic planning if two banks were to swap top management teams. His answer: nothing. Why? Because the banking industry has conventions - principles, practices, and protocols - which are followed by 99.99% of all banks and bankers. These conventions have been passed from one generation of bankers to the next, and their very deep roots virtually insure that any major innovations in banking will come from outside the industry.

Conversation:

For banks or bankers who want to challenge the conventions of the industry, Hamel suggested holding a conversation centered around these questions.

• What are 10 things you would never hear a customer say about a bank or bankers?
  
• What conventions do these statements represent?
• If we overturn these conventions, what new opportunities or new ways doing business emerge?

This is a very useful framework. You can use it in the same way to challenge the conventions of your industry, and you can use it in a variety of other ways. For example, you can ask what 10 things you would never hear a visitor say about your website, and go on from there.

Afterwords:

"To know what everyone knows is to know nothing." - Remy de Gourmont

"Engineers brought up and living in affluent Japan have no chance of understanding the needs of the next billion." - Fumio Ohtsubo, Panasonic president, as quoted by Financial Times

"Not only do we as individuals get locked into single-minded views, but we also reinforce these views for each other until the culture itself suffers the same mindlessness." - Ellen J. Langer

"The journey is hard, for the secret place where we have always been is overgrown with thorns and thickets of “ideas,” of fears and defenses, prejudices and repressions." - Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard

"Success is dangerous. One begins to copy oneself, and to copy oneself is more dangerous than to copy others. It leads to sterility." - Pablo Picasso

"Tunnel vision is a disease in which perception is restricted by ignorance and distorted by vested interest." - Tom Robbins, Still Life With Woodpecker

We're All Just Cavemen with Briefcases

Muhammad Yunus is a Bangladeshi banker and founder of Grameen Bank, which trades in microcredit or small loans. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. In 2006, Yunus and Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for efforts to create economic and social development from below."

During an interview aired November 22, 2006, on PBS' The News Hour Yunus said:

"All human beings are entrepreneurs. When we were in the caves we were all self-employed ... finding our food, feeding ourselves. That’s where human history began ... As civilization came we suppressed it. We became labor because they stamped us, ‘You are labor.’ We forgot that we are entrepreneurs."

Primeval memories of our entrepreneurial nature are being stirred as we speak, though. Dan Pink has poked at us with his book Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself.

And, Richard Florida believes the sooner our inner entrepreneur wakes up and gets moving the better, because the new world of work will be dominated by those with an entrepreneurial spirit and creative juices flowing in their veins. In The Rise of the Creative Class he says:

"Access to talented and creative people is to modern business what access to coal and iron ore was to steelmaking."

Companies agreeing with Florida will battle hammer and tong to find and keep top talent. But, does getting the best-of-the-best to pull up a stool at your saloon matter all that much? Why not save a little time - and more than a few Benjamins - by hiring next-to-the-best talent? One answer comes from Nathan Myhrvold, former chief scientist for Microsoft:

"The top software developers are more productive than average software developers not by a factor of 10x or 100x, or even 1,000x, but 10,000x."

Another from Ed Michaels, author of the The War for Talent:

"Steve Macadam at Georgia-Pacific … changed 20 of his 40 box plant managers to put more talented, higher paid managers in charge. He increased profitability from $25 million to $80 million in 2 years."

If you decide you want to attract and keep the best-of-the-best, you'll have to ante up the following just to get in the game:

• great job
  
• great location
  
• great company
  
• great compensation and benefits
  
• great boss
  
• great coworkers
• great everything
  

Beyond that, you must provide a convincing answer to the question Stan Davis and Chris Meyer say superstars will be sure to ask, and keep asking; it's from their book Future Wealth:

"If I invest my mental assets with you, how much will they appreciate? How much will my portfolio of career options grow?”

If you already have some of these folks on board and want to keep it that way, you should have the following conversation with each of them on a regular basis.

Conversation:

• How are you being challenged? What other responsibilities would you like to assume?
  
• How fast are you learning new things? How important are the things you've learned?
  
• What are you best known for today? What else? Another?
  
• What would you like to be able to add to that list by this time next year?
  
• What are you doing to gain public recognition for your capabilities and accomplishments?
  
• How many significant names have you added to your list of contacts in the last 6 months?
• What changes have you been able to make in your resume over the last year?
  

Afterwords:

"Why was Solomon recognized as the wisest man in the world? Because he knew more stories (proverbs) than anyone else. Scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we’re all just cavemen with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories." - Alan Kay

"The real source of wealth and capital in this new era is not material things ... it is the human mind, the human spirit, the human imagination, and our faith in the future." - Steve Forbes

"For a moment he was completely befuddled, but this is a condition which can never exist for long in a mind like Khaavren's, a mind which acts like a fallow field, in which it is only necessary for a seed to touch it before this seed will sprout, although with what fruit is not always apparent." - Steven Brust, The Phoenix Guards

"Intrinsic motivation lies at the heart of Deming’s management philosophy. By contrast, extrinsic motivation is the bread and butter of Western management. A corporate commitment to quality that is not based on intrinsic motivation is a house built on sand." - Peter Senge

"Creativity comes from freedom." - W. Edwards Deming

Does Your Dog Bite?

Early on in my stint with the Wilson Learning Corporation, I heard founder Larry Wilson tell the following story:

It seems a dog food company introduced a new product only to see it fall flat. After a short time, the company got the sales force together to ask them what the problem was. The meeting opened. A very senior executive spoke.

He challenged the group: "Who uses the best ingredients?"
They shouted: "We do!"
Louder: "Who has the best advertising?"
The retort: "We do!"
Louder, still: "Who has the best sales force?"
Shouting now: "We do!"
The big question: "Why the hell aren't we selling more dog food?"

Silence.

Then, from the back of the room: "Because the damn dogs don't like it!"

I've not forgotten that story and it's message: a product is doomed to failure if the end users don't like it.

It's simple stories like this that can help you remember important principles and recall them when necessary. You are also likely to have a much more interesting and creative conversation with your product development folks, if you are talking about whether or not the dogs will like it versus whether or not the new product or service in question will meet or exceed customer expectations.

Here's another dog story with a lasting lesson.

The late Susan Butcher was a four-time winner of Alaska's Iditerod Trail Sled Dog Race. In an article published in the January, 2003 edition of the Harvard Business Review, she said:

"The dogs finally lost confidence in me. They’ll forgive a few mistakes, but if you send them in the wrong direction too many times, they’ll just stop."

Conversation:

• Have you ever lost confidence in a leader for the same reason the dogs lost confidence in Susan Butcher? How quickly did it happen?
• In Susan's case, the dogs simply stopped. Assuming you were not in a position to stop working, what did you do instead? Slow down? Passively resist? Resort to sabotage? Lead a counter-revolution? Other?
  
• In your case, what could the leader have done to regain your confidence? How long do you think it would've taken - if ever - for trust to be completely restored?
• Have you ever had a group of people you were leading lose confidence in you? How did it happen? How did you find out? What did you do to correct the situation? Did it work? Are you sure?

Afterwords:

"All perception of truth is the detection of an analogy." - Henry David Thoreau

"I've seen a look in dogs' eyes, a quickly vanishing look of amazed contempt, and I am convinced that basically dogs think humans are nuts." - John Steinbeck

Video:

There’s a scene in the 1976 movie, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, in which Peter Sellers’ bumbling Inspector Clouseau eyes a dog sitting near a hotel clerk. This exchange follows:

Clouseau: "Does your dog bite?"
Hotel Clerk: "No."
Clouseau: [bows to pet dog] "Nice doggie." [dog barks and bites Clouseau]
Clouseau: "I thought you said your dog did not bite!"
Hotel Clerk: "That is not my dog."

Here's the video of the scene from YouTube:

Lay These Words Upon Your Heart ...

Jacob Needleman is a professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University and the author of many books, including: Why Can't We Be Good?, The Wisdom of Love, Time and the Soul, The Heart of Philosophy, Lost Christianity, and Money and the Meaning of Life.

More than a decade ago, we invited Jacob to do a special evening presentation for our Masters Forum members. His topic was Money and the Meaning of Life.

Since that time, I've made it a point to keep in touch with his work, and early this year bumped into a transcript of a speech he gave at Indian Springs School on January 22, 2004. The speech was about the great unanswerable questions of life; the questions that come from a deep place within us, such as:

• Who am I?
  
• Does God exist?
  
• Is there a soul, and is it immortal?
  
• What can we know?
  
• What ought we do?
  
• What is good and evil?

A great body of ideas and teachings has been built up over thousands of years to help people as they try to answer these questions. This wisdom is alive in every culture of the world, and forms the basis for all the great religious traditions and spiritual philosophies of the world. It was studied, practiced and passed on by mystics, saints, and great philosophers. It comes in many forms: words and stories; pictures and symbols; modes of behavior; and various forms of art. According to Needleman:

"The great stories and images of the world don’t usually reveal their meaning to us right away. These great stories, these fairy tales, these Biblical images, these myths, these great works of art - sometimes they’re not there to convince the brain, the head which is rational - but they’re there to make a kind of end run around the rational mind, which is sometimes connected to the superficial sense of ego; to do an end run, and go down in the direction of the heart. And later on, as the years pass, and suddenly life does something to you, some shock, some disappointment, some triumph, some extraordinary thing, and suddenly, 'Ah! That’s what the story meant, that’s what the story was telling me!' So try to let these stories come into you and slowly radiate their meaning."

Jacob told a story to drive his point home; it's an exchange between a pupil and a wise old rebbe:

"And so, the pupil asks the wise rebbe about a passage in the Bible, in the Book of Deuteronomy, which is part of the Torah, the heart of the Old Testament. There is a sentence there that says to 'Lay these words upon your heart.' The words, which sum up the fundamental belief of the Hebraic tradition, are these: 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.' (Deuteronomy 6: 4-6) And the pupil asks the rebbe, 'Why does it tell us to lay these words upon our heart? Why doesn’t it tell us to put them in our heart?' And the rebbe answers, 'It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and the words can’t get it in. So we just put them on top of the heart. And there they stay. There they stay until someday, when the heart breaks, they fall in.'"

He ended his time on the dais by saying:

"The great wisdom: study it in all its forms, and someday when your heart breaks, either in great sorrow or in uncontainable joy, it will fall in, and you’ll understand this other level of human values that every school worthy of the name is trying to lead you toward."

Conversation:

• How is your life guided by the deep wisdom of the heart Needleman refers to?
  
• What words are laying upon your heart?

Afterwords:

"Where is the life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" - T.S. Eliot

"Australian Aborigines say that the big stories - the stories worth telling and retelling, the ones in which you may find the meaning of your life - are forever stalking the right teller, sniffing and tracking like predators hunting their prey in the bush." - Robert Moss, Dreamgates

Dennis Prager on the Goodness of Goodness

Dennis Prager is a radio talk show host, who has been nationally syndicated since 1999. He is also a frequent guest on TV news shows such as Larry King Live, The Early Show on CBS, The Today Show, The O'Reilly Factor, Hardball, and Hannity & Colmes. He has written four books, including the best-selling Happiness Is A Serious Problem.

Dennis has been with us at The Masters Forum on four occasions. During his first appearance, while delivering a presentation titled Ultimate Issues, he asked an interesting question:

"If you could choose just one of the four, would you want your children to grow up to be happy, smart, successful, or good?"

He asked us to make a choice and discuss it with a person sitting nearby. Incidentally, there is a correct answer to the question as far as Dennis is concerned: good. This jibes with his philosophy that the most basic and meaningful way to sort people or behavior is to use two boxes: one marked Good; the other marked Evil.

Then came a second question:

"If I asked your children which of the four they think you want most for them, what would their answer be?"

In other words, he wanted us to consider the possibility that we might be saying one thing is important with our words, while unwittingly reinforcing another with our deeds.

Steve Kerr, former Chief Learning Officer of both GE and Goldman Sachs, says we are prone to making this same mistake in our roles as managers and leaders. His classic article - On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B - sheds light on the subject.

Conversation:

• How do you typically let others know what you expect of them?
  
• How do you check to see that they are absolutely clear about what you want?
  
• How do you ensure that what you are asking for and what gets rewarded are one and the same?
  
• If you could choose just one of the four, would you want those who work with you - or for you - to be happy/engaged in their work, smart/committed to learning, successful/getting the job done, or good/doing what's right?
  
• If you asked them, what would they say you want most?
  

Afterwords:

“Don't you draw the Queen of Diamonds, boy, she'll beat you if she's able. You know, the Queen of Hearts is always your best bet.” The Eagles, Desperado

"I believe that there is one story in the world, and only one, that has frightened and inspired us, so that we live in a Pearl White serial of continuing thought and wonder. Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil. I think this is the only story we have and that it occurs on all levels of feeling and intelligence. Virtue and vice were warp and woof of our first consciousness, and they will be the fabric of our last, and this despite any changes we may impose on field and river and mountain, on economy and manners. There is no other story. A man, after he has brushed off the dust and chips of his life, will have left only the hard, clean questions: Was it good or was it evil? Have I done well—or ill?" - John Steinbeck, East of Eden

Video: Desperado by The Eagles

Are You a Hammer or a Nail?

The Hammer and Nail - created by John Provo of Reitaku University in Japan - is an exercise designed to encourage abstract thinking. It also presents the opportunity to see ourselves from many odd and interesting angles, and helps the others come to know us in new and different ways.

Conversation: From each of the following pairs of words, pick the one you think best describes you and thoughtfully explain why you feel that way. Are you:

• Hammer or nail?
  
• Child or old man or woman?
  
• Sun or moon?
  
• Cube or ball?
  
• Present or future?
  
• Yes or no?
  
• Physical or mental?
  
• Pencil or eraser?
  
• Question or answer?
  
• City or country?
  
• Dictionary or novel?
  
• TV or radio?

Afterwords:

"Speech is the mother, not the handmaid, of thought."- Karl Kraus

"How can I tell what I think until I see what I say?" - E.M. Forster

"Tell all the Truth but tell it slant-
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind." - Emily Dickinson

Splatter Vision

In their book Peripheral Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals that Will Make or Break Your Company, Paul J.H. Schoemaker and George S. Day describe a method the FBI uses to scan large crowds for early signs of trouble:

"The FBI trains its agents to use a scanning approach called splatter vision. This involves scanning a crowd for would-be assassins by looking into the distance and not focusing on anyone in particular. Once the agent fixes a general gaze, he or she looks for deviation or change. Is someone restless, looking around too much, slowly putting a hand into a coat pocket? From among hundreds of faces, the agent seeks a lone assassin; suspicious activity then triggers a more intense focus. By balancing directed and undirected scanning, a single agent can spot signs of trouble across a fairly large area."

This technique is not new; it has been used for centuries by Native Americans to track game in the wilderness. It is also used by fighter pilots in air-to-air combat situations, and in top driver training schools.

Roch Parayre is a partner with Shoemaker and Day in Decision Strategies International, and a Fellow at the Aresty Institute of Executive Education at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business. In a recent Masters Forum presentation - Scanning the Periphery - he said a figurative version of this technique can be used by companies to pick up weak signals of impending threats or opportunities in their environment. He added that those who do this successfully will gain a significant advantage over competitors who are late to arrive at the table. To do an initial scan, he suggests:

Conversation:

• What have been our past blind spots?
  
• What is happening there now?
• Is there an instructive analogy from another industry?
• Who in our industry is skilled at picking up weak signals and acting on them ahead of competition?
• What important signals are we rationalizing away?
• What are our mavericks and authors saying?
• What are our peripheral customers and competitors really thinking?
• What future surprises could hurt or help us?
• What emerging technologies could change the game?
• Is there an unthinkable scenario?
  

Afterwords:

"The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little that we can do to change, until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds." - R.D. Laing

"Planning for the future without a sense of history is like planting cut flowers." - Daniel Boorstin

"Illusions mistaken for truth are the pavement under our feet. They are what we call civilization." - Barbara Kingsolver, The Poisonwood Bible

"Often do the spirits of great events stride on before the events, and in today already walks tomorrow." - Friedrich Schiller

"The punch that knocks a man out is the punch that he doesn't see. Have you ever seen the pea in the shell game? The man who works the game must have the ability to direct attention to the wrong area. That's what happens in boxing." - Cus D'Amato, boxing trainer and manager.

Are These My Students?

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to work with most of the world's great speakers. At the very top of that list is Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra.

There are many things that have boosted Ben to the top of the speaker leader board. First, he is a true genius and his thoughts on how to better our lives, relationships, and organizations are practical as well as profound. Second, he is a remarkable performer. He shares his ideas with great warmth and joy. He also plays the piano, tells poignant stories, and involves his audience in ways that make his points jump to life. These things alone make Ben a lock to receive a standing ovation and the highest possible ratings whenever and wherever he speaks.

But, there is something else - an X factor if you will - that brings Ben even higher regard: he always shows up as the caring, interested human being he is, and not as a celebrity or the star of the show. To illustrate:

In early 2000, I was involved in planning and conducting a three day conference for an international bank. We hired Ben to give the opening keynote, which took place right before dinner on the first night. Ben's presentation was a rousing success, of course. But, it was what happened before he even registered at the hotel that clearly demonstrates what I mean when I say he shows up as a human being.

I met Ben's limo when it arrived at the front entrance to the hotel. After he stepped out, we exchanged pleasantries, corralled his luggage, and headed for the lobby. Once inside, we bumped into 20 or 30 of our conference's attendees who were milling around as they waited to register. It was what Ben did at that point that helped me understand why he moves people so deeply. He said - out loud so that everyone could hear - "Are these my students?" When I confirmed his notion, he said "Ahhh! There you are!" He followed that by wading into the crowd and asking folks to tell him their name, where they were from, and so forth.

There is a great lesson here that should not be missed. Whenever we walk into a room full of people - or simply greet one other person - we have a choice: we can feel, think, and behave in a way that says, "Here I am!" or we can do it in a way - Ben's way - that says "Ahhh! There you are!"

Conversation:

• Do you know someone who shows up like Ben Zander? How does that person make you feel when you are with him or her?
• How are you most apt to show up with others? How do you want to show up?
• When you meet someone for the first time, what are you most interested in learning about him or her? What do you most want that person to know about you? Which comes first?
• Are you more attracted to people who seem fascinated with you, or to people who fascinate you?

Afterwords:

"You can make more friends in two months by becoming more interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you." - Dale Carnegie

"When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand. Ideas actually begin to grow within us and come to life." - Brenda Ueland, author

The Strength to Lead, the Courage to Die

According to Be, Know, Do: The U.S. Army Leadership Manual:

"Leadership starts with what the leader must be; the values and attributes that shape the leader’s character. Leadership is a matter of how to be, not how to do."

A boots-on-the-ground example of what that really means comes from a story told at an early Masters Forum session by David Kirk Hart, former professor at BYU's Marriott School of Management:

"When the British pulled out of Israel, the Israelis went to war with all the Arab nations. A small Israeli raider company became trapped in a very bad firefight, 70 men against 1500. The raider commander said, 'We've got to retreat.' In a retreat, you call upon somebody to stay behind and cover the retreat. The commander of the Israeli unit was a man named Naham Arieli - you should remember the name - and Arieli gave the retreat order which later became the creed of the Israeli officer corps. The retreat order was, 'All of the enlisted men are to withdraw; the officers will cover the retreat.' One officer got off the hill alive. In an age of golden parachutes, in an age of sacking and pillaging the firm to be sure the CEO and the second financial officer are okay before announcing Chapter 11 bankruptcy, that's noblesse oblige."

Conversation:

• Name a person whose courage has inspired you. Explain.
• What heroic qualities do you possess? What scares you?
• What is the most difficult ethical or moral decision you've ever had to make?
  
• What do you continually get away with?
• What was a significant crossroad in your life? What path did you take and why?
• What would you be willing to die for?
  

Afterwords:

"Perhaps because warfare has played a central role historically in the development of our conceptions of leadership and authority, it is not surprising that the ancient linguistic root of the word 'to lead' means 'to go forth, die.'" - Ronald A. Heifetz, Leadership Without Easy Answers

"There comes a time in the life of every human when he or she must decide to risk “his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor” on an outcome dubious. Those who fail the challenge are merely overgrown children, can never be anything else." - Robert Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

"You can be obsessed by remorse all your life, not because you chose the wrong thing - you can always repent, atone - but because you never had the chance to prove to yourself that you would have chosen the right thing." - Umberto Eco

Cowell and Candor

American Idol judge Simon Cowell is thought to be mean-spirited for saying things like:

"You have just invented a new form of torture."

"Shave off your beard and wear a dress. You would make a great female impersonator."

Simon also gives plenty of pats on the back ...

"I don't say this lightly, what I'm about to say. That performance was on a par with Whitney Houston ... Celine Dion ... seriously."

"At five seasons, you are the best male vocalist we've ever had."

... but hardly anyone notices, or thinks of him as nice.

Why? His candor - especially when he is being brutally honest - is so out of step with the current conventions of social discourse that it stands out like a sore thumb. Simon understands this ...

"I think you have to judge everything based on your personal taste. And, if that means being critical, so be it. I hate political correctness. I absolutely loathe it."

... but there's a method to his madness:

"I haven't done anything particularly harsh. Harshness to me is giving somebody false hopes and not following through. That's harsh. Telling some guy or some girl who's got zero talent that he or she has zero talent actually is a kindness."

Maybe this is why he says:

"I am poor, misunderstood Simon. I'm really the nice one and no one gets it yet. But, they will."

Whether you agree or not, it's worth examining his premise more thoroughly.

There is a show in the U.K. similar to American Idol. It's called Britain's Got Talent. Simon is a judge there as well. Watch the following clip from the show. Here is what you'll see. A six year old girl steps onstage to perform. She is vying for a spot in the finals. She sings. The first two judges sing her praises. Simon is last to speak. Pay close attention to his words and - more importantly - how he frames them.

Here's Connie:

There are at least two things worth noting. The first is to recognize Simon's credibility as a judge. Little Connie, her parents, the audience and the other judges were all holding their breath as they waited for Simon's assessment. This is because they knew - based on his previous behavior - that he could be trusted to give her the rating he thought she had earned - nothing more and nothing less. And, they were afraid that he might not have liked her performance all that much.

The second is more subtle. When he said "Connie, I'm going to talk with you like an adult because I think it is important," he was deliberately making it clear he was going to hold her to the same standard as everyone else in the competition. If he hadn't framed it that way - and simply told her she was terrific - she might have thought he was just being nice to her because she was only six years old. As a matter of fact, odds are great that most of the feedback Connie had gotten up to that point in her life had been qualified as in "She's really good ... for someone who's only six." Instead, Simon gave her a true gift: feedback she could take to heart. It didn't matter that she was only six, she was good ... period.

But would he have been straight with her - or mean in the mind of most - had her performance been poor? In all likelihood, yes. It's also likely he would've taken her age into account and cushioned the blow as best he could. In other words, he would've tried to balance courage with consideration.

As a leader or manager or coach or mentor or teacher or spouse or parent or friend or neighbor or whatever, you should feel obligated to give the folks who wander in and around your life any feedback you think would - or even just might - be helpful to them. There are times, of course, when it is easier - and correct - to say nothing, or color the truth in some small way, to avoid hurting someone's feelings or getting into an argument. But, don't be too tempted to take the easy way out. Be like Simon. Care for people instead of taking care of them. There's a big difference.

Morris Schectman lays out the difference in his book Working Without a Net:

"Caretaking is when you bother me a little bit, and I do just enough. I feel better because I think I took care of you. That is not any good to you at all. You may be in fact an alcoholic and I just gave you the money to buy the bottle that kills you. But, I feel better and go home."

"Caring is actually stopping and dealing with the human being, trying to understand enough about them to genuinely make sure you improve their life, even if you have to start with a conversation like, 'If you will quit drinking, I will help you get a job.' This is a lot harder than saying, 'Here's a buck or 5 bucks. I hope it helps.'"

Conversation:

• How do you tend to have either a caretaking nature or a caring nature?
• Can you think of a situation(s) in which you were a caretaker? What did you do? What was the short-term result? Long-term? How was what you did either fair or unfair to the other person involved?
• Can you think of a situation(s) in which you were caring? What did you do? What was the short-term result? Long-term? How was what you did either fair or unfair to the other person?

Afterwords:

"He who praises everybody, praises nobody." - James Boswell

"Speech devoted to truth should be straightforward and plain." - Seneca

"The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names." - Confucius

"Beware how you take away hope from another human being." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

The Sin and Redemption of Michael Vick

When Andy Reid, head coach of the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles, announced recently that he had signed Michael Vick, who had just been released from prison after serving 18 months for running an illegal dog fighting operation in Virginia, to an Eagles' contract, I was both surprised and not surprised. I was surprised that any NFL team would take on the public relations nightmare that surely would ensue; I was not surprised when I heard it was Reid and the Eagles who did it in spite of what might happen. Let me explain further.

In a 1977 Harvard Business Review article - Managers and Leaders: Are They Different? - Abraham Zaleznik, the Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership Emeritus at the Harvard Business School, said that most great leaders are "twice born" individuals who have endured a major event such as a tough childhood, a religious revelation, or a life and death experience (a second birth) that leads to a sense of separateness, or perhaps estrangement from their environment. As a result, they turn inward and after a period of self-reflection emerge with a not only a deepened and stronger sense of self, but also relatively free of dependency on the social structures that surround them. This, I think, is Andy Reid's story.

Reid stepped into a crucible of fire on January 30, 2007 when his two oldest sons, Garrett and Britt, were arrested in separate driving incidents. Garrett, the older of the two, was charged with felony drug possession. Britt was charged with felony drug possession and for illegally carrying and brandishing a hand gun. Both were subsequently convicted of the charges and incarcerated. Reid immediately drew heavy fire from the media and the public, of course, but chose not to respond to any of it. In fact, I'm guessing that if you'd dialed him up on the cell back then, you'd have heard:

"You've reached the voice-mailbox of Andy Reid. I'm sorry I'm not here to take your call. Please leave a message. You can begin speaking at the beep."

And even though the cacophony of advice, recriminations, and demands for a "come to Jesus" meeting with the press grew louder and louder, Reid maintained his silence. He turned inward; it was a time for soul searching.

Andy maintained his separateness for almost a year before he finally agreed to do an interview with Philadelphia Magazine. He was joined by his wife Tammy. The interview is here. If you read it front-to-back, you'll get a real sense of how much - and how fundamentally - he changed during his year of self-reflection or "second birth." Here are a couple of things that stood out for me.

First, when he was asked what he had learned about addiction by participating in Garrett's treatment he said:

"Because of the chemical makeup of the brain, certain people are more susceptible to drug use and addiction than others. You might be able to have knee surgery, take Oxycontin, and you’re fine. Where Garrett might take a quarter of one, his mind gets hold of it, and he’s got to have more. He’s got to have it. You find out that everybody is different. Everybody has their drug of choice, that their mind loves. It’s an epidemic that has attacked America. I was sitting there, in counseling, with good people. They are not bad people, it encompasses everybody."

Second, when he was asked what he had learned about himself he said:

"You put it all out on the table. As a parent, if you can’t do that with them, then there is going to be a wall. And so we both put it out on the table. Every emotion, you go through every emotion you can imagine, you go back to when you were a kid and work to the present, the whole shebango. It was a great experience. I’m not saying it was fun — but it was an unbelievable experience, an emotional roller coaster."

Third, when he was asked to compare the amount of control a coach has over his team with the amount of control a parent has over an addict he said:

"They’re really very similar, though. In a game, once the whistle blows, and you’re playing the game, now the human element is there, and it’s how you’ve trained them. Some days they are going to throw an interception or miss a tackle. You didn’t train them that way. But you live with it, and you keep on teaching them. That’s why we’re here, we’re here to be teachers. And so you do the same thing at home, you teach them and then let them go. You blow the whistle and let them play. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t."

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn't point you to the reader comments at the end of each page. See if you can tell the difference between the folks who've walked in the Reid's shoes and those who haven't.

Back to Michael Vick. In describing the press conference in which Reid announced Vick's signing, sportswriter Rich Hoffman of the Philadelphia Daily News said in part:

"The coach acknowledged that Vick has been on his mind for months and years. He said that Vick got into trouble at about the same time his sons got into trouble, and that he followed Vick's story from afar and compared it to what his sons were enduring. It was as open and as human as Reid has ever been at an interview podium, and it was clear that not only was this Reid's decision, first and foremost - but that his personal life opened him to the possibilities.

"At one point Thursday night, he was asked whether he might not have been so open if he had not seen his sons, and the mistakes they made, and what they went through. He said: 'I don't know that. I would hope that I would be, just like I hope the fans would be.'

"A minute later, he added: 'I've kind of lived that process. I've seen change.'"

Did Michael Vick sin? Yes, but don't we all? Does he deserve a chance to redeem himself? I say, "Yes." Why? Because I've walked a mile in Andy Reid's shoes, and if it's good enough for Andy, it's good enough for me.

Conversation:

• Would you give Michael Vick a second chance? Why or why not?
• Have you gone through a "second birth" experience? If so, how were you changed, and how has your life been affected since?
• Has someone given you the opportunity to redeem yourself sometime during your life's journey to date? What happened? Who was involved? How was your life changed? How much did it matter?
  

Afterwords:

"There is not a righteous man on Earth who does what is right and never sins."
- Ecclesiastes 7:20

"Some of the best lessons are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom of the future." - Dale Turner

"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars." - Khalil Gibran

"Every kind of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism." Carl Gustav Jung

"I am not being flippant when I say that all of us suffer from addiction. Nor am I reducing the meaning of addiction. I mean in all truth that the psychological, neurological, and spiritual dynamics of full-fledged addiction are actively at work within every human being. The same processes that are responsible for addiction to alcohol and narcotics are also responsible for addiction to ideas, work, relationships, power, moods, fantasies, and an endless variety of other things. We are all addicts in every sense of the word. Moreover, our addictions are our own worst enemies." - Gerald G. May, Addiction and Grace

"Every form of refuge has its price." - The Eagles, Lyin' Eyes

"And the truth I see is that the Bible is populated with people like you and me. People who are flawed and imperfect. People who have crooked teeth and bad skin. Who have stinky breath and dirty feet. Who don't always know the difference between right and wrong. Who are self-serving and capricious. People caught in the conflict and dichotomy between good and evil, between the sacred and the profane, between beauty and ugliness, and between the bright and the moronic. People who hope - and many believe - that they are made in the very image of God." – Barry Moser

"Up to a point a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world about him; then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes it to be. Everyone has it within his power to say, this I am today, that I shall be tomorrow." - Louis L’Amour

Video: Lyin' Eyes by The Eagles

Do Not Go To Your Left

When author and TV commentator Roger Rosenblatt graced us with his presence at The Masters Forum several years ago, he gave us this advice on how to live a more successful life:

"Do not go to your left."

He explained that going to your left is a basketball term for working on a weakness; a right-handed player who learns to dribble and shoot from the left side will be more effective on the court. And while this is great for basketball, he said, people who try to compensate for weaknesses in life usually get weaker.

Roger's words could easily be a one-off title for the book - Now, Discover Your Strengths - by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, or even a folksy mission statement for a human resources department. In other words, forget about identifying and correcting weaknesses and focus on building up strengths instead.

There a many ways to discover your strengths. One is to buy Gallup's book - Strengths Finder 2.0 - by Tom Rath. There is a code tucked away inside each book; you can use it to go online and complete a questionnaire that will point to your greatest strengths.

Another approach is to meet face-to-face with four or five people you know and trust, and ask them for feedback on your strengths. The benefit is you get to see yourself as others see you - which isn't always the way you see yourself. You can also ask questions to clarify things you don't understand.

Conversation:

• Pick four or five people who have seen you in action and experienced your behavior over a reasonable (a few months) amount of time.
  
• Meet with each of them individually, and ask what they value most about you. Listen. Ask questions to clarify. Take notes.
  
• Upon completion of the meetings, sift through your feedback and list the top three things they said they value most about you - your strengths.
  
• Meet with each of them again to share your findings and get their response. Ask one or more of them if they would be willing to help you further develop these strengths.

Afterwords:

"Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it annoys the pig." - Robert Heinlein

"Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not commit adultery. Don't eat pork. I'm sorry. What was that last one? Don't eat pork. God has spoken. Is that the Word of God, or is that pigs trying to outsmart everybody?" - Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show

“There is a Japanese proverb that literally goes ‘Raise the sail with your stronger hand,’ meaning you must go after the opportunities that arise in life that you are best equipped to do.” - Soichiro Honda

I've Got a Secret. You've Got a Secret.

I don't know Penelope Trunk, but I'm sure I'd like her if I ever got the chance to sit down and talk with her a bit. I discovered her when I listened to a presentation she gave a couple of years ago at The Executive Forum, a business lecture series based in Denver, Colorado, and run by my friend Margie Mauldin. What I liked best about Penelope was her candor; it was a real breath of fresh air to hear someone talk in such a plain way about things that really matter, but are rarely - if ever - discussed around the water coolers or in the rest of the nooks and crannies of corporate America.

Ms. Trunk is even more candid in her blog Brazen Careerist, which has nearly 35,000 subscribers. I'm a semi-regular reader, and happened on a post a short while ago I really liked: I Hate David Dellifield. The One from Ada, Ohio. Here's the crux of it. The help she normally has to watch her kids while she works was not available during Spring Break, so she spent most of that time being a stay-at-home mom. She had figured out earlier in her life that this wasn't something she seemed to be genetically coded to do, so toward the end of her time at home with the kids - and in what she says was a moment of innocent desperation - she Twittered:

"No school today and the nanny's on vacation. A whole day with the kids gets so boring: all intergalactic battles and no intellectual banter."

In seconds, men from all over cyberspace started firing shot across her bow; they were telling her she was a bad mom. One of those shots - in particular - really ticked her off. It was fired by - you guessed it - David Dellifield of Ada, Ohio:

"@penelopetrunk sorry your kids are a burden, send them to OH, we'll enjoy them for who they are"

You can read the rest of her post for yourself. And, you should; the tap dance she does on his head is really well choreographed. What I want to pick up on here, though, is something she said about a third of the way through her riff:

"Parents need to be able to say that parenting is not fun."

She's right, of course. Parenting is not all grins and giggles. Kids are cute - but not 24/7 cute - when they're young; largely a pain-in-the-butt when they're teenagers; and who knows what after that. And, we parents should be able to say so without having some self-appointed referee toss a penalty flag.

An even larger point is there are way too many things we don't get to say these days without being derided, shunned, or cast out of our tribes. This is especially true in the workplace; it's true in most of the other places we habituate as well.

Secrets. Paul Tournier says:

"Nothing makes us so lonely as our secrets."

And sick. I think much of the fear and sadness we experience in our lives is rooted in keeping things we really need to talk about hidden behind a facade of good cheer. How sick can we get trying to suck it up? Watch this YouTube video; it answers that question very directly. It was produced and uploaded by a young girl who wanted to share her story of self-immolation, self-injury, and redemption in hopes it might be of help to others who find themselves in the same boat.

If you watched all the way to the end, you were surely struck in some way, shape, or form. Perhaps you wondered why she didn't cry out for help sooner; it's the logical thing to do, after all. Maybe you thought she was weak or lacking willpower, that all she needed to do was "Just say no!" And, why not? Lots of people have pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. Another possibility is that you breathed a sigh of relief when you found she entered a treatment program, because you know they work. Don't they? Most likely, though, your heart went out to her, and you wish you had been there to help. But, how? She tells us at the end:

"Don't judge me by the scars on my arms, instead help me to throw away the blade."

It shouldn't have to get that far. If we - individuals, families, communities, the world at large - could develop a less judgmental and more understanding ethos, people in trouble would be willing to step forward and ask for our help much sooner. And, if that were to happen, fewer people would put their hands on the blade in the first place. This is an extreme case, of course, but not uncommon. We all most certainly have family members, friends, co-workers, close acquaintances, and others we know suffering in a private hell we don't have a clue about. And, most of us are living in one of our own as well.

Secrets. Accept them as gifts when they are offered. Give them as gifts when you can.

Conversation:

• What are some things that just aren't discussed at work? Which of the things you named do you think should be open for discussion? Why? Which do you think are better left unsaid? Why? How about at home?
• What is your personal experience with secrets? How readily to disclose them to others? Have you found confiding in others to be helpful or hurtful? Is there a story you can tell to illustrate? How are you receptive or not receptive to having others confide in you? How do respond when someone really opens up to you? Is there a story you can tell about helping someone who took the risk of being vulnerable with you?
• Have you ever been stunned to learn something about another person that you could never have guessed? How could you have known sooner?
• Do you have a deep, dark secret? If you were willing to share it at all, who would you share it with and why?

Afterwords:

"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know." - Diane Arbus

"All secrets are deep. All secrets become dark. That’s in the nature of secrets." - Cory Doctorow, Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town, 2005

"The shadow is the long bag that we drag behind us in which we've stuffed all the dark parts of ourselves that we would like to keep secret." - Robert Bly

"There is no greater disease than the loss of hope." - Rabbi Yisroel Salanter

"Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Perhaps the best conversationalist in the world is the man who helps others to talk." - John Steinbeck, East of Eden

"Have compassion for everyone you meet, even if they don't want it. What appears conceit, cynicism or bad manners is always a sign of things no ears have heard no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone." - Miller Williams, The Ways We Touch

"The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire." - Teilhard de Chardin

A Sense of Place

According to a Russian Proverb:

"Every peasant is proud of the pond in his village because from it he measures the sea."

That old saw is a reminder of how important it is to reach back every now and then to touch both the place we were first rooted, and the people who did so much to shape us. And, while it's not always possible to make the physical journey back home, it's very possible to travel there mentally. What follows is a vehicle for making the trip, and bringing some others along for the ride.

• Get together with two other people
  
• Think back to the house you lived in between the ages of 3 and 9. If there was more than one, pick the one that holds the fondest memories for you.
  
• Draw a floor plan - blueprint - of the house, labeling the rooms and positioning furniture, wall hangings, etc. as you can best recall.
• Take turns. Use the floor plan to take the others on a tour of the house. Go through each room. Share some of the things you associate with particular rooms or places in the house: people, events, conversations, feelings, colors, smells, etc. Encourage them to ask questions to fully understand what you're remembering and why.

Conversation:

When you have finished touring, you will most likely be back in touch with some of the most important and deep-seated lessons you ever learned. You can bring them into sharper focus by sharing your answers to the following questions:

• What did you learn in that house about expressing love? Anger? Sadness? Joy?
• About trust? Honesty? Loyalty? Deceit? Cheating?
• About how women are? Men? Children? Old folks?
  
• About how good you are? Smart? Athletic? Musical? Creative? Likable? Lovable?
  
• About family? Other relatives? Neighbors? Friends? Teachers? Merchants? Law enforcement officers? Strangers? Others?
  
• About God? Religion? Church? Spirituality?
  

Afterwords:

"Each pond with its blazing lilies is a prayer heard and answered lavishly, every morning, whether or not you have ever dared to be happy, whether or not you have ever dared to pray." - Mary Oliver

"In New York City, especially in Greenwich Village, down among the cranks and the misfits and the one-lungers and the has-beens and the might've-beens and the would-bes and the never-wills and the God-knows-whats, I have always felt at home." - Joseph Mitchell, Up in the Old Hotel

"And all of it is as it has always been: again, again, I turn, and find again the things I have always known: the cool sweet magic of starred mountain night, the huge attentiveness of dark, the slope, the street, the trees, the living silence of the houses waiting, and the fact that April has come back again. And again, in the old house I feel beneath my tread the creak of the old stair, the worn rail, the whitewashed walls, the feel of darkness and the house asleep, and think, 'I was a child here; here the stairs, and here was darkness; this was I, and here is Time.'" - Thomas Wolfe, Return

"The thought was banal, and yet somehow, as happened every now and then, it took him by surprise and profoundly disappointed him. It was absurd, but underlying his experience of the world, at some deep Precambrian stratum, was the expectation that someday – but when? – he would return to the earliest chapters of his life. It was all there – somewhere – waiting for him. He would return to the scenes of his childhood, to the breakfast table of the apartment of the Graben." - Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

"A city man has a home anywhere, for all big cities are much alike. But a country man has a place where he belongs, where he always returns, and where, when the time comes, he is willing to die." - Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Video: A great performance by the Irish group Celtic Thunder

See New Now

Where has the time gone? I haven't posted here for a time because I've been busy working on fine-tuning and publishing my first book - See New Now: New Lenses for Leadership and Life - with my friend and co-author Jerry de Jaager, but I didn't realize until just now that more than two weeks has passed. Well, as they say, "Time flies when you're having fun."

In the most basic sense, See New Now uses story and metaphor to help people at any level in any organization think in fresh ways about fundamental business issues such as strategy, innovation, diversity, and collaboration.

When I put my metaphysical hat on, though, I think of the Buddhist masters who say there are three steps on the path to enlightenment. First is having the "right view." Second is having the "right intention." Third, is taking the "right action." See New Now is the important first step, of course, because both your intentions and actions will be wrong if you insist on trying to solve today's problems with yesterday's seeing.

You can learn more about the book - and perhaps even purchase a copy or two - at seenewnow.com. You can get a sense of the topics we cover, discover some ways you might put our ideas to work for you, learn a little more about the book's two rogue authors, and read some things that some best-selling authors and top business leaders have said about it. For example:

“This small book will expand your thinking and equip you to thrive in an unpredictable future as much as any other book you might read. Its elements—images, stories, ideas, and cool related stuff—are masterfully woven together for maximum impact in minimum time.” —Ben Sherwood, author of the New York Times best-seller The Survivors Club

“This is superb learning technology for today’s busy leaders and their busy organizations. Fun to read and easy to digest, it still packs one heck of a wallop.” — Steve Kerr, former Vice President of Corporate Leadership Development and Chief Learning Officer, GE

“Once in a great while someone figures out how to transform the confusing complexity of the business world into beguiling simplicity, without losing anything in the translation. This delightful and intelligent book has that quality from cover to cover. Highly recommended!”— Steve Lundin, co-author of the New York Times best-seller Fish!

You can also read an article about the book on John Reinan's blog at minnpost.com.

Afterwords:

"The innovator's dilemma is in his head. Well, first it's in his eyes: not seeing what you don't believe is possible is the first problem; not believing what you're seeing is the second; not being able to imagine it as a threat is the third; not responding to it in time is the fourth." - Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator's Dilemma

“To do things differently, we must learn to see things differently. Seeing differently means learning to question the conceptual lenses through which we view and frame the world, our businesses, our core competencies, our competitive advantage, and our business models. It means finding new eyeglasses that will enable us to see strategies and structures taking shape, even if we feel that we are on the edge of chaos; it is a matter of survival in the new world of business.”- John Seely Brown, former head of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center

“Have I given anyone insight? That's what I want to have done. Insight lasts; theories don’t. And even insight decays into small details, which is how it should be. A few details that have meaning in one’s life are important.” - Peter Drucker

We're Here to Fart Around

Author Kurt Vonnegut was a contrarian of the first order and a no-holds-barred commentator on the follies and foibles of humankind. And, while he could be sarcastic and dark, Vonnegut often used humor to communicate his views on the basic questions life. This is shown by a story he told David Brancaccio of PBS during an interview for NOW. The date was October 7, 2005.

"I told my wife I'm going out to buy an envelope. 'Oh,' she says. 'Well, you're not a poor man. You know, why don't you go online and buy a hundred envelopes and put them in the closet?' And so I pretend not to hear her. And go out to get an envelope because I'm going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, I ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, I don't know. The moral of the story is we're here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don't realize, or they don't care, is we're dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we're not supposed to dance at all anymore."

This a fast-paced, dog-eat-dog, 24/7 world. There is little or no time to fart around. But, should we make the time? There at least two reasons for doing so. First, to reduce stress. Second, to clear our minds so that new thoughts and ideas can make their way in.

Conversation:

• What is Vonnegut's story about for you?
  
• How does it intersect with your life at this time?
  
• When is the last time you farted around? What did you do? How was it worthwhile, or a waste of time?
  
• If you think that farting around once in awhile is a good idea, how will you make the time do it?
• If you think you do too much of it already, how will you stop?
  

Afterwords:

"Remember the scene in Cat Ballou where a very drunk Lee Marvin goes from unconscious to ranting to triumphant to roaring to weeping defeat and then finally passes out? One of the men watching him says, with real awe, 'I never seen a man get through a day so fast.' Don't let this be you." - Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

How Did You Do That?

Aubrey Daniels, founder and chairman of Aubrey Daniels International, is an expert on behavior in the workplace. In a recent interview he talked about the cynicism that develops when managers try to use one complex technique after another to reinforce and shape worker behavior:

"You know, a lot of the Dilbert strips go over my head, but I use my all-time favorite in one of my seminars. The boss is giving a performance appraisal. He says, 'I'll raise your appraisal from four to five if you eat a bug.' The employee says, 'What?' The boss says, 'Eat a bug. How much clearer can I be?' Then the boss says, 'I didn't have much luck with the other management techniques, so I'm kind of winging it now.'"

Daniels believes the answer is to use measurement to find out the few simple things that really work to shape behavior, and then employ them in an open, honest way. One of the things he's found that works is a very simple idea that can lead to very big results. Kathryn Cramer of The Cramer Institute remembers Daniels describing it in a presentation she attended:

"Our research shows the most reinforcing question you can ask somebody is, 'How did you do that?' It's reinforcing because it helps the person who just did something right pause and reflect. If you ask yourself or someone else that question, almost always people will pause and say, 'Well, I don't know exactly. I just did it.' It prompts you to think it through, step by step. This is a great way to help the integration process, where we really have a deeper knowing of what we did. We get confidence as a bonus."

Conversation:

• What management fads or techniques have driven you nuts?
  
• Some experts believe annual performance reviews should be abolished because they do more harm than good. Do you agree or disagree?
  
• How do you feel when you sense someone is using a technique to interact with you?
  
• What is the best way people can compliment you on your work?
• How do you handle compliments?
• How do you compliment others?

Afterwords:

"The man who carries a cat by the tail learns something that can be learned in no other way." - Mark Twain

"Too often I would hear men boast of the miles covered that day, rarely of what they had seen." - Louis L'Amour

"How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that brings good news, who proclaims peace and brings glad tidings of good things." - Isaiah 52:8

"Don’t ever cuss that fiddle, boy, unless you want that fiddle out of tune." - Willie Nelson

Who Doesn't Want to Be a Millionaire?

Joe Paterno has been head football coach at Penn State since 1966. His team has won 383 games - including 23 bowl wins - and two national championships. He is one of four active coaches who have been inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. In addition to winning football games, Paterno is known for emphasizing academics along with athletics; his four-year Graduation Success Rate as reported by the NCAA is 78 percent. He is also a philanthropist. He and his wife Sue have contributed over $4 million to various colleges and departments at the University. He also helped raise $13.5 million to expand its Pattee Library.

JoePa - as he is often called - holds the record for most years as head coach at a single institution. He has had many chances to leave the Nittany Lions during his tenure there, as you might guess, but has been tempted on only one occasion. It was 1972 when that call came. He relates the story in Paterno: By the Book, which was published in 1989. His co-author was Bernard Asbell.

I remember the day I was forced to decide who I am. All night I lay awake wrestling with my past, trying to make sense of my future. It was December 1972. I had been head football coach at Penn State for almost seven years, and thought I was content.

Then that unexpected phone call had come – an offer to make me a rich man if I left the school I loved. The man on the phone was Bill Sullivan, former president and principal owner of the New England Patriots. "I want to meet with you to talk about coaching my team," he said. I told Sullivan I’d had other offers and wasn’t much interested in coaching in the pros. Then he hit me with his package - $1.3 million, plus part ownership of the franchise and a $100,000 bonus for signing.

At Penn State my pay was a grand total of $35,000. The money had always satisfied my family – but Sullivan’s offer made me dizzy. In the end, I told my wife I had to take the job. "Joe, whatever you want to do will be fine with me," Sue replied.

I called Sullivan and told him we had a deal. When Sue and I went to bed that evening, I said, "Okay, kid. Tonight you get to sleep with a millionaire."

At 2:00 a.m., Sue was sitting in her rocking chair nursing our baby. I’m sure she thought I was asleep. She had never said she didn’t want to go to Boston. But now tears were slipping down her face.

I lay there thinking about the life I was leaving. I saw the school where I had met my wife, the only home our five kids had ever known. I saw the students, the granite statue of our mascot, the Nittany Lion, and my thick-necked, fragile-hearted football players. What had made me tell Sullivan I’d come? Yes, Boston was a great city. It was a new challenge. But it was … the money.

Suddenly, I knew what I had to do, what it was I wanted to do. In the morning, I told Sue, "You went to bed with a millionaire, but you woke up with me." Her first thought she later told me was, "Oh, thank God."

From the moment of that nighttime revelation, I knew what college means to me - and what pro football could never mean. I love winning games as much as any coach does, but I know there’s something that counts more than victory or defeat. I get to watch my players grow - in their personal discipline, in their educational development, and as human beings. That is a deep lasting reward that I could never get in pro ball.

When author and philosopher Tom Morris appeared at the Masters Forum, one of them many things he shared with us was his view on setting goals.

First, he said we need to be very clear about what we want:

"Aristotle said 'Every human being needs a target to shoot at.' Without that a person’s life is literally aimless. Aristotle understood that the first condition for success is a clear conception of what we want; in any endeavor, in any enterprise, in any relationship we need a vivid vision, a goal clearly imagined. Aristotle didn’t think that in every situation we need to be thinking about what we want to receive – what we want to get out of it – but what we want to make happen; what result we want to achieve as a consequence of our actions."

It took a night of tossing and turning, but by the break of dawn Joe Paterno had reclaimed his compass.

Second, he said we need to articulate our goals:

"Much is written today about the importance of setting goals. And, at the top of the list of suggestions provided by most experts in the field is to write your goals out. They say you are much more apt to achieve them if you do. Is there any magic in writing your goals down? No. But, do you know what’s almost magical? The power of articulation; using the discipline of language to articulate where you want to go - whether spoken or written."

In the last paragraph of the story related above, Paterno did a wonderful job of articulating his goals for the future: he wanted to work with college kids and help them grow as athletes, students, and human beings.

Third, he said our goals must be personal:

"The most important advice on goal setting was given to us by Socrates. It is, simply, 'Know thyself.' Every exercise is goal setting should be an exercise in self-knowledge. So many people fail in life because they set goals that are right for somebody else, but not for them. Find the goals that are right for you."

In the final analysis, Paterno knew himself well enough to second-guess his initial decision and then make the right one ... for him. I would also be willing to bet that he hasn't looked back since. And that is the way of the warrior. To quote Carlos Castaneda:

"The most effective way to live is as a warrior. A warrior may worry and think before making any decision, but once he makes it, he goes his way, free from worries or thoughts; there will be a million other decisions still awaiting him. That’s the warrior’s way."

Conversation:

Answer the following questions to set clear, articulated, and personal goals.

• What result do you want to create?
• Why is this important to you? Describe the benefits you and others will receive if you succeed. Describe the impact on your job, your career, and your life.
• How will you do it? Describe the specific steps you will take. Include dates, people, events, evaluation (how will you know when you are succeeding) and resources (materials and people.)

Afterwords:

"There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle, hugely accommodated to the usage of man's life: Know Thyself and Nothing Too Much; and upon these all other precepts depend." - Plutarch

"In this country we used to have a culture of conversation. People talked to each other; families over the dinner table; neighbors over the fence or on the front porch. We don’t talk to each other anymore about our hopes and dreams and aspirations the way we used to, and as a result we are not clarifying for ourselves what we really want." - Tom Morris

"Every universe, our own included, begins in conversation. Every golem in the history of the world, from Rabbi Hanina's delectable goat to the river-clay Frankenstein of Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, was summoned into existence through language, through murmuring, recital, and kabbalistic chitchat - was, literally, talked into life." - Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

"In our playpens and high chairs, we are rarely far from displaying either hysterical happiness or savage disappointment, love or rage, mania or exhaustion - and, despite the growth of a more temperate exterior in adulthood, we seldom succeed in laying claim to lasting equilibrium. Our innate imbalances are further aggravated by practical demands. Our jobs make relentless calls on a narrow band of our faculties, reducing our chances of achieving rounded personalities and leaving us to suspect (often in the gathering darkness of a Sunday evening) that much of who we are, or could be, has gone unexplored." - Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness

"Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want. Everything else is secondary. - Steve Jobs - commencement address, Stanford University, 2005