Andy Reid and the Redemption of Michael Vick

When Andy Reid, head coach of the NFL's Philadelphia Eagles, announced 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 that. 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 do wrong? Yes, but don't we all? Did 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 have given 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

Call Me Trim Tab

R. Buckminster Fuller - inventor, futurist, and humanitarian - is buried in Mount Auburn Cemetery near Boston. His tombstone reads simply:

CALL ME TRIMTAB - BUCKY

A trim tab is a small device on a ship’s main rudder that must be turned before turning the large rudder to change course. Fuller saw trim tabs as a symbol for the small but strategic acts that change the course of world events, and he devoted his life trying to determine what a single individual like him - or a small group of like-minded people - could do to better the human condition that large organizations, governments, or private enterprises could not.

There are many individuals who've changed the course of history. A case in point is Rosa Parks, whom the U.S. Congress named "Mother of the Modern-Day Civil Rights Movement." On December 1, 1955, she was seated on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. When the driver ordered her to give up her seat so a white passenger could take it, she refused. Her action ignited the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was among the first dominoes to fall on the path that led to the passing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.

Most of us are not in a position to change the world, but we are all capable of improving things in our world. Sadly, many of us forget to do the small things that can make a big difference in the lives of those closest to us. Mother Teresa laments:

"It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start."

Several years ago Rabbi Joseph Telushkin closed his Masters Forum presentation by sharing five short phrases - trim tabs - we can use to heal broken relationships with those close to us, or deepen ones currently in fine repair. It's a great place to start if you want to go there.

• Thank you. Gratitude is more than a virtue in Telushkin's view: it is the cornerstone virtue, the one on which all goodness is based. Say thank you often and sincerely.
• I love you. Don't be like the man at his wife's funeral, who was overcome by the love he felt for her but never expressed to her. It's not enough to keep love in your heart - it must be continually handed over to the one you love, in words and in deeds.
• How are you? This question shows that you care, that you are concerned. Say something to communicate that it matters to you whether the other person lives or dies.
• What do you need? Ascertaining what a person needs allows you to give him or her what is most meaningful - and thus, the highest expression of your love. But if you don't ask, you won't know.
• I'm sorry. Once a man came to Telushkin and confessed an inability to come out and say he was sorry for things he had done. Telushkin said, "Can you then say I'm sorry I am unable to say I'm sorry?"

Conversation:

• What contributions do you dream of making to others?
• Dag Hammarskjold, former United Nations Secretary General once said, "It is more noble to give yourself completely to one individual than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses." Does his statement ring true with you? How does it intersect with your life today?
• Of those closest to you, is there one in particular who needs more of your time, attention, and support than you are currently giving? Do you see how applying one or more of Rabbi Telushkin's trim tabs can help repair your relationship with that person? Will you do it?
• Has anyone every done a small thing for you that ultimately had a profound impact on your life? What did this person do? What impact did it have?
• What makes someone unforgettable?
  

Afterwords:

"Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless." - Mother Teresa

"To live in love is to accept the other and the conditions of his existence as a source of richness and not as an opposition, restriction or limitation." - Maturana

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

"Falling leaves that lie scattered on the ground,
The birds and flowers that were here cannot be found.
All the friends that he once knew are not around.
They're all scattered like the leaves upon the ground.
Some folks drift along through life and never thrill,
To the feeling that a good deed brings until,
It's too late and they are ready to lie down,
There beneath the leaves that's scattered on the ground.
Lord, let my eyes see every need of every man,
Make me stop and always lend a helping hand,
Then when I'm laid beneath that little grassy mound,
There'll be more friends around than leaves upon the ground.
To your grave there's no use taking any gold,
You cannot use it when it's time for hands to fold,
When you leave this earth for a better home someday,
The only thing you'll take is what you gave away."
- Grandpa Jones, Falling Leaves

The Warp and Woof of Meaning

In more stable times, we educed meaning in our lives from well-established communities and traditional cultural norms. Today, we can't count on those things. We have to create meaning for ourselves. John W. Gardner, HEW Secretary in the Johnson administration, and founder of Common Cause, explained in a speech at McKinsey & Company, November 10, 1990:

"Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account."

The process of building meaning into our lives is dynamic. We live. We Learn. We make new meaning. We do it all again. To do this purposefully, Gardner suggests we consider the following questions on a regular basis. This is best done in conversation with others who understand the importance of doing so. One possibility is your life partner. Another is your family. Still another is your colleagues at work. In fact, you and your co-workers can use the questions to talk about the meaning you are deriving from your work.

Conversation:

• What things are forgotten in the heat of battle?
• What values get pushed aside in the rough-and-tumble of everyday living?
• What are the goals we ought to be thinking about and never do?
• What are the facts we don’t like to face?
• What are the questions we lack the courage to ask?

Afterwords:

"The sailor cannot see the North, but knows the needle can." - Emily Dickinson

"Life is tumultuous - an endless losing and regaining of balance, a continuous struggle, never an assured victory. We need to develop a resilient, indomitable morale that enables us to face those realities and still strive with every ounce of energy to prevail. You may wonder if such a struggle - endless and of uncertain outcome - isn't more than humans can bear. But all of history suggests that the human spirit is well fitted to cope with just that kind of world." - John W. Gardner

"First we must understand that there can be no life without risk - and when our center is strong, everything else is secondary, even the risks. Thus, we best prepare by building our inner strength by sound philosophy, by reaching out to others, by asking ourselves what matters most." - Elie Wiesel

"Work is about a search too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than stupor; in short for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying. Perhaps immortality, too, is part of the quest." - Studs Terkel

Playing the Ball Where It Lies

Bobby Jones is certainly the greatest amateur golfer who ever lived, and a strong argument can be made that he should be recognized as the greatest golfer ever. His climb to that dizzying height began in 1923, when he won his first major championship - the U.S. Open - at Inwood CC, Inwood, NY. It ended in 1930, when he retired after reaching the top of golf's Mt. Everest. He won all four majors that year - accomplishing what has come to be known as golf's Grand Slam - including his last competitive outing, the U.S. Amateur at Merion Cricket Club, Ardmore, PA. In between, he won 11 other majors - 3 U.S. Opens, 3 British Opens, 3 U.S. Amateurs, and 2 British Amateurs - in 18 tries.

Jones accomplished all this while devoting only about a quarter of his time to golf. The rest of it was spent pursuing a law degree, and practicing law once he obtained it. Besides his playing prowess, he is remembered for co-designing and building Augusta National Golf Club and founding The Masters golf tournament.

Among the many things worth knowing about Bobby Jones, there are two I want to point to in particular.

The first involves an incident during the 1925 U.S. Open at Worcester CC, Worcester, MA. During the play of one of the early holes in the final round, his ball dribbled into the rough just off the fairway. As he addressed the ball in preparation to play his next shot, the ball moved imperceptibly. He immediately turned to the nearby tournament officials, and called a penalty on himself. The officials were stunned; they hadn't seen his ball move. They asked if anyone in the gallery had seen it move; no one had. They huddled and decided that since no one had seen the ball move, the final decision was Jones'. Bobby Jones didn't hesitate for one second, and let the penalty stand. He ended up losing the tournament by a single shot. When he was praised for his gesture, Jones replied:

"You might as well praise me for not breaking into banks. There is only one way to play this game."

The second, involves the great tragedy of his life. In 1948, at the age of 46, he contracted syringomyelia, a fluid-filled cavity in his spinal cord causing first pain, then paralysis. He never played golf again, and in due time was relegated to a wheelchair. He died December 18, 1971. He was 69. Shortly before he died, he was asked about his illness. His answer is testament to his deep and abiding wisdom:

"I will tell you privately it's not going to get better, it's going to get worse all the time, but don't fret. Remember, we play the ball where it lies, and now let's not talk about this, ever again."

To play the ball where it lies is the most basic rule of golf. Golfers who play by this rule - accepting and handling both the good and bad breaks that come with the territory - are not only able to leave the 18th green with a score that truly means something, but also with the deep personal satisfaction that can only come from doing what's right - win, lose, or draw. Golfers who ignore it - who cheat to win - not only debase themselves in the eyes of their fellows (word gets around) but in their own eyes as well.

For Bobby Jones playing the ball where it lies was also a basic rule for living a good and noble life, and a true test of character. Do you think he passed?

"For when the One Great Scorer comes to mark against your name, He writes - not that you won or lost - but how you played the game."- Grantland Rice, sportswriter

Conversation:

• Are you willing to confront the truth of even the worst of the situations you face in your life? Is there a particular lesson you've learned that you can share?
  
• Do you trust someone who cheats at golf - or any other seemingly innocuous activity - to do right when it comes to the more important aspects of life?
  
• How do you play the ball in your work and life?
• What will the One Great Scorer mark against your name?
  

Afterwords:

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

"The highest reward for a person’s toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it." - John Ruskin

"Fame is something which must be won; honor is something which must not be lost." - Arthur Schopenhauer

"There's a gigantic gray area between good moral behavior and outright felonious activities. I call that the Weasel Zone and it's where most of life happens." - Scott Adams, Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel

"When another is shooting, no player should talk, whistle, hum, clink coins, or pass gas." - Willie Nelson, reciting a rule he enforces at the private golf course he built for himself and all his rowdy friends

A Page of Lost Questions

John O'Donohue was an Irish poet and philosopher who lived in a small cottage in the West of Ireland. He wrote several books including Anam Cara: The Book of Celtic Wisdom and Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong. John passed away on January 3, 2008. He was 52 years old. You can access his website to learn more about John and his work.

John appeared in the 2004 Masters Forum. He spoke of many things, including his view on the thrill of being involved in a great conversation.

"When is the last time you had a great conversation? A conversation which wasn’t just two intersecting monologues, which is what passes for conversation in this culture. When have you had a great conversation in which: you overheard yourself saying things you never knew you knew; you heard yourself receiving from somebody words that absolutely found places within you that you had thought you had lost; you and your partner ascended to a different plane; memories of the exchange continued to sing in your mind for weeks afterward?"

Conversation:

O'Donohue left us with these questions from what he called a page of lost questions. He said each would lead to a great conversation.

• Is there someone walking home this evening through the streets of Leningrad that you have never met and never will meet, but whose life had an incredible interest on yours?
• At the angel bar, what stories does your angel tell about you?
• Supposin' you were to take your heart away on your own for a day out, and that you really decided to listen to your heart, what do you think your heart would say to you?
• If you were in conversation with your heart, and you told it how actually, factually short your life is, what would your heart make you stop from doing right now?
  
• If it is true that nothing good is ever truly lost, what would you like to have back?

Afterwords:

"Our time is hungry in spirit. In some unnoticed way we have managed to inflict severe surgery on ourselves. We have separated soul from experience, become utterly taken up with the outside world and allowed the interior life to shrink. Like a stream that disappears underground, there remains on the surface only the slightest trickle. When we devote no time to the inner life, we lose the habit of soul. We become accustomed to keeping things at surface level. The deeper questions about who we are and what we are here for visit us less and less. If we allow time for soul, we will come to sense its dark and luminous depth. If we fail to acquaint ourselves with soul, we will remain strangers in our own lives." - John O'Donohue, from his book Beauty

Video:

A link to a slide show of O'Donohue narrating a blessing he wrote called Beannacht.

Lake Wobegon, Garrison Keillor & Me

Garrison Keillor is creator and host of A Prairie Home Companion which was first broadcast from the Janet Wallace auditorium at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, on July 6, 1974.

Today, almost 40 years later, his tales from the fictional Lake Wobegon, which he calls "the little town that time forgot and the decades cannot improve," are heard by over 4 million listeners each week on almost 600 public radio stations here and abroad.

Speaking about the show's long run on APHC's website, Keillor says:

"When the show started, it was something funny to do with my friends, and then it became an achievement that I hoped would be successful, and now it's a good way of life."

I get Garrison Keillor. I grew up in a small, out-of-the-way Minnesota town - not unlike his Lake Wobegon - and can relate to the yarns he spins about the folks who live there and the warp and weft of their lives.

I also get Garrison because he and I are pretty close to the same age and grew up with the same stuff spinning around, over, under and through us: the dawn of the nuclear age; the dark shadow cast 'round the world by an evil Soviet Union; The Shadow and The Lone Ranger on the radio; Ozzie & Harriet, Father Knows Best and Bonanza on TV; the birth of rock & roll; the tragic deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P Richardson aka The Big Bopper; the civil rights movement; the murders of Jack and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King; Timothy Leary and trips on LSD; Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and The Kingston Trio; San Francisco, flower children, Volkswagen buses and free love; Vietnam, draft dodgers, war protesters; the Beatles, Helter Skelter & Charlie Manson; Richard Nixon, Watergate, and on ... and on ... and on. Ahh! Yes! "Those were the days, my friend" ... sing along now ... "I thought they'd never end, we'd sing and dance forever and a day." Hmmm.

Times have changed, of course, just like Bob Dylan said they would, and when I get to looking back on those days of yesteryear, I usually get to thinking about how smart I thought I was; how I had all the answers. Maybe Garrison does too. But, once you get to be our age - Garrison's and mine - and if you still have your wits about you, it slowly dawns on you that you may not have been so smart after all. Or, as Garrison has simply and profoundly stated:

"You get old and you realize there are no answers, just stories."

Stories ... they are the principle driver of learning that sticks in the human brain:

"If history were taught in the form of stories, it would never be forgotten." - Rudyard Kipling

Stories ... they keep us from losing our way:

"If you don't know the trees you may be lost in the forest, but if you don't know the stories you may be lost in life." -  A Siberian Elder

Stories ... they help us connect with others in a deep, meaningful way:

"We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome.  One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — 'Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought.' " - John Steinbeck

Conversation:

• In Dreamgates, Robert Moss wrote: "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." What is the big story you are meant to tell? How will it find you?

• Hannah Arendt has said: "Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it." How do you understand what she is saying?

• When he is talking to leaders, Peter Block often says: "Our ability to facilitate the learning of others is absolutely dependent on our own consciousness and on our willingness to make our own actions a legitimate subject of inquiry. Allowing the personal to become public is the act of responsibility that initiates cultural change and reforms organizations. Our need for privacy and our fear of the personal are primary reasons why organizational change is more rhetoric than reality. Real change comes from our willingness to own our vulnerability, confess our failures, and acknowledge that many of our stories do not have a happy ending." Do you typically share these kinds of stories? Why or why not?

Afterwords:

"The eye of understanding is like the eye of the sense; for as you may see great objects through small crannies or levels, so you may see great axioms of nature through small and contemptible instances." - Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum

"Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them." - Aldous Huxley

"The leader who says ‘I don’t know’ essentially says that the group is facing a new ballgame where the old tools of logic may be its undoing rather than its salvation. To drop these tools is not to give up on finding a workable answer. It is only to give up on one means of answering that is ill-suited to the unstable, the unknowable, the unpredictable. To drop the heavy tools of rationality is to gain access to lightness in the form of intuitions, feelings, stories, experience, active listening, shared humanity, awareness in the moment, capability for fascination, awe, novel words and empathy." - Karl Weick

"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

"'I would ask you to remember only this one thing,' said Badger. 'The stories people tell have a way of taking care of them. If stories come to you, care for them. And learn to give them away where they are needed. Sometimes a person needs a story more than food to stay alive. That is why we put these stories in each other's memory. This is how people care for themselves. One day you will be good story-tellers. Never forget these obligations.'" - Barry Lopez, Crow and Weasel

"A minister has to be able to read a clock. At noon, it's time to go home and turn up the pot roast and get the peas out of the freezer." - Garrison Keillor

"They say such nice things about people at their funerals that it makes me sad that I'm going to miss mine by just a few days." - Garrison Keillor

"Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people." - Garrison Keillor

For Beowulf, Nothing Failed Like Success

In my freshman year of college, I enrolled in English Literature 101. On the first day of class, the teacher stood behind the podium and began reading the epic tale of Beowulf. I listened, but in vain; I couldn't grasp a thing she was saying. And, as soon as the two hours of that initial class period had passed, I headed to the office and dropped the class. I tried not to even think of Beowulf after that.

That all changed on a sunny St. Patrick's Day a few years ago when real-life wizard Brian Bates appeared at The Masters Forum, and told the story of Beowulf in words that even I could understand.

A little about Brian. He teaches psychology at the University of Brighton, directs the Shaman Research Program at the University of Sussex, and is an adviser to the Ford Foundation's project on worldwide indigenous wisdom. He is the author of several books including: The Way of Wyrd and The Real Middle Earth.

Back to Beowulf. Here's the story as I now understand it:

A monster named Grendel was attacking the castle of King Hrothgar of Denmark each night, killing and devouring his soldiers and guests. No one could stop him.

A great warrior from afar, Beowulf, hears of the king's plight and comes to the rescue. He succeeds in slaying the monster.

It turns out, though, that the monster has a nasty ol' mother who rears up out of her swamp and takes over where Grendel left off. Beowulf takes out the mother as well. Hrothgar is forever grateful.

Beowulf returns to his own people, the Geats. He serves them well; becomes their king.

Fifty winters pass. Beowulf has grown old.

One day, an evil dragon shows up and begins to beat on the Geats. Beowulf decides that he - and he alone - will slay the dragon.

Beowulf preps for battle. As he heads out to meet the dragon, he asks 12 of his warriors to join him. He gives them a direct order to stay out of the battle.

The battle rages. Beowulf is getting his ass handed to him. His warriors can see he needs help, but they have no idea what to do; besides they are scared witless. They head for the hills. Well, at least 11 of them do. The 12th, Wiglaf, decides to help the old man out. He does it by rushing in and distracting the dragon just long enough for Beowulf to strike a killing blow. The dragon goes down for the count. Minutes later, it's lights out for Beowulf as well.

There are several lessons to be learned here for accomplished leaders and high achievers of all stripes.

Conversation:

• Why do you think Beowulf decided to face the dragon by himself? Have you ever done the same in some instance in your work or life? Is it typical of you?
• Do you think he considered the possibility he would die? Why or why not? Do you consider the possibility of failing when you decide to go it alone?
• The story says Beowulf invited a few of his warriors to come along for the ride, but only to observe. Why? Have you ever done the same?
• The warriors didn't rush to rescue Beowulf when he got into trouble. In fact, 11 of 12 turned tail and ran. The story says they fled because they didn't know what to do to help. This suggests that Beowulf had not mentally or physically prepared his warriors to fight such a battle. Why do you suppose he failed to do so? How about you? Are you truly developing your subordinates, or merely entertaining them with your brilliance? Explain.
• Nothing fails like success is an old saying. How do you interpret it in light of this story? How do you interpret it in terms of your own life and work?
  

Afterwords:

"Often when one man follows his own will many are hurt." - Wiglaf

"The art of life lies in a constant readjustment to our surroundings." - Okakura Kakuzo, author

"It seldom happens that a man changes his life through his habitual reasoning. No matter how fully he may sense the new plans and aims revealed to him by reason, he continues to plod along in old paths until his life becomes frustrating and unbearable. He finally makes the change only when his usual life can no longer be tolerated." - Leo Tolstoy

"People hear what they want to hear and disregard the rest." - Simon & Garfunkel, The Boxer

"Firefighters are most likely to get killed or injured in their 10th year on the job, when they think they've seen pretty much everything there is to see on the fires. They become less open to new information that would allow them to update their models." - Karl Weick, Wired, April, 2004

Schindler's List

As the 1993 film Schindler's List opens, Polish Jews are being relocated from the countryside to a crowded ghetto in Krakow. The year is 1939. World War II has just begun. Shortly thereafter, Oskar Schindler - played by Liam Neeson - a successful businessman and member of the Nazi Party, arrives from Czechoslovakia hoping to manufacture field kitchenware and mess kits for the German army. He acquires a factory by bribing SS officials and brings in accountant and financier Itzhak Stern - played by Ben Kingsley - to help him run it. Among the first things Stern does is advise Schindler to staff the plant with Jews from the ghetto; he said this would give him a dependable, low-paid work force. Schindler sees the financial benefits and quickly agrees. For Stern a job in a war-related plant means survival - at least in the short term - for himself and other Jews working for Schindler.

Schindler initially treats the Jewish workers with indifference, seeing them as a nameless, faceless mass instead of individuals with rights and equal worth to gentiles such as himself. He changes on this score as the film moves on, though, and eventually spends his entire fortune and risks his life on many occasions to keep Stern and more than 1200 other Jews out of the Nazi death camps.

Why did he do it? What made this man do what no other German had the courage to do? This is the question people - including the Jews saved by Schindler - are still asking today.

Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler's Arc - later renamed Schindler's List - hints at why he thinks Schindler did it when he says in the book:

"Schindler grew up in a strong Roman Catholic household with deeply religious parents. Their nearest neighbors were a Jewish Rabbi and his family, and the Rabbi's two sons were Oskar's best friends for years."

Steven Spielberg, who turned the novel to film, said in an interview in Der Spiegel:

"Oskar Schindler was simply ein guter Mensch whose sheer humanity forced him to take great personal risk to save his Jews."

A decade before Spielberg's Schindler's List won seven Academy Awards, a British producer and director, Jon Blair, made Schindler, an 80 minute documentary on the life of Oskar Schindler for British Thames Television. The film won a British Academy Award for best documentary in 1983, but left few clues as to why Schindler did what he did. Blair was quoted later as saying:

"Oskar, this big man with a big heart and big connections, loved to be loved and needed. But I always thought that it was a weakness in my film that I couldn't explain Schindler's motivation, and Spielberg told me the same about his - it seems impossible to crack that enigma."

Perhaps Schindler himself didn't know for sure. In a 1964 interview he said:

"The persecution of Jews in occupied Poland meant that we could see horror emerging gradually in many ways. In 1939, they were forced to wear Jewish stars, and people were herded and shut up into ghettos. Then in the years '41 and '42, there was plenty of public evidence of pure sadism. With people behaving like pigs, I felt the Jews were being destroyed. I had to help them. There was no choice."

The most plausible explanation may have been revealed in a 1965 conversation between Schindler and Moshe Bejski - a Schindler Jew and later an Israeli Supreme Court justice. When Bejski asked him why he did it, Schindler answered:

"I knew the people who worked for me. When you know people, you have to behave towards them like human beings."

The story of Oskar Schindler is not merely one about an altruistic and morally decent man - though Schindler was that. It is, in the main, the story of a man who gets to know his workers through personal encounters, and comes to see them as individual human beings with hopes, dreams, fears, and passions just like his own. And, once he grants them humanity, he feels a strong pull to assist them. I think this idea is best expressed near the end of the film when Schindler introduces Stern to his wife. He says:

"Stern is my accountant and my friend."

Conversation:

• How does this last explanation for Schindler's behavior make more or less sense to you than the others considered?
• Why might it be important for leaders to build personal relationships with their followers?
  
• Why might they want to keep from getting too personally involved?
• What is your philosophy in this regard? How is it working for you? Have you ever thought there might be a better way? Have you experimented with it? What happened?
  
• What is your reaction to the statement: Your people are not human resources, they are human beings?
  

Afterwords: 

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke

"We ask ourselves, 'How could the German people not have known what was going on, long before the Panzer divisions moved into Poland in September of 1939? How could they not have known about Bergen-Belsen?' Well, a system to administer evil without interference is usually firmly entrenched before anyone notices - you don’t get the opportunity to see it coming. As Mussolini intuited, if you just make the trains run on time, people will be happy. So, if you’re simply getting on with life - paying taxes, changing diapers, wondering how you’re going to make the car payment next month- you’re not really paying attention to what having the trains run on time might mean." - Barry Lopez, in an interview with Christian Martin, Michigan Quarterly Review, Fall 2005

"They came for the communists, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a communist.  They came for the socialists, and I did not speak up because I was not a socialist.  They came for the union leaders, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a union leader.  They came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.  Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up for me." - Martin Niemoller

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." - Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

"After the war we reassured ourselves that it would be enough to relate a single night in Treblinka, to tell of the cruelty, the senselessness of murder, and the outrage born of indifference: it would be enough to find the right word and the propitious moment to say it, to shake humanity out of its indifference and keep the torturer from torturing ever again. We thought it would be enough to read the world a poem written by a child in the Theresienstadt ghetto to ensure that no child anywhere would ever again have to endure hunger or fear. It would be enough to describe a death-camp 'Selection,' to prevent the human right to dignity from ever being violated again. We thought it would be enough to tell of the tidal wave of hatred which broke over the Jewish people for men everywhere to decide once and for all to put an end to hatred of anyone who is 'different' - whether black or white, Jew or Arab, Christian or Moslem - anyone whose orientation differs politically, philosophically, sexually. A naive undertaking? Of course...." - Elie Wiesel, speaking of his book Night in his 1986 Nobel address

"Honor never grows old, and honor rejoices the heart of age. It does so because honor is, finally, about defending those noble and worthy things that deserve defending, even if it comes at a high cost. In our time, that may mean social disapproval, public scorn, hardship, persecution, or as always, even death itself. The question remains: What is worth defending? What is worth dying for? What is worth living for?" - William J. Bennett - in a lecture to the United States Naval Academy November 24, 1997

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." - George Orwell

Video:

This scene takes place near the end of the movie. The Germans have surrendered. Schindler, who will now be seen as a war criminal by the occupying Soviet army, is taking his leave. It is a powerful expression of the deep affection that Schindler has for those he saved, and of theirs for him.

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

"The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them - words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than than, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried when you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for the want of a teller but for the want of an understanding ear." - Stephen King

"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

What Do You Know of What You Speak?

In early 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Unitarian minister at the time, was asked to address the graduating class of the Harvard Divinity School. The address was to be given on July 15th. Ironically, he got the invitation only a few days after he had decided to leave the ministry because he felt that organized religion could no longer command respect. Still, Emerson accepted the invitation, and on a beautiful July evening in Boston he spoke to the audience of seminarians about to enter the active Christian clergy. Most of what he said that night was the standard stuff of commencement addresses. One thing, though, stood out. He told a story about bad preaching.

“I once heard a preacher who sorely tempted me to say, I would go to church no more. Men go, thought I, where they are wont to go, else no soul entered the temple in the afternoon. A snow storm was falling around us. The snow storm was real; the preacher merely spectral, and the eye felt the sad contrast in looking at him, and then out of the window behind him, into the beautiful meteor of the snow. He had lived in vain. He had no one word intimating that he had laughed or wept, was married or in love, had been commended or cheated, or chagrined. If he had ever lived and acted, we were none the wiser for it. The capital secret of his profession, namely, to convert life into truth, he had not learned. Not one fact in all his experience, had he yet imported into his doctrine. This man had plowed, and planted, and talked, and bought, and sold; he had read books; he had eaten and drunken; his head aches; his heart throbs; he smiles and suffers; yet was there not a surmise, a hint, in all the discourse, that he had ever lived at all. Not a line did he draw out of real history. The true preacher can be known by this, that he deals out to the people his life - life passed through the fire of thought. But of the bad preacher, it could not be told from his sermon, what age of the world he fell in; whether he had a father or a child; whether he was a freeholder or a pauper; whether he was a citizen or a countryman; or any other fact of his biography. It seemed strange the people should come to church."

Emerson's preacher failed - at least in Emerson's eyes - because his discourse left Emerson asking himself: "What does he know of what he speaks?"

In today's world, we are bombarded by preaching - religious and otherwise. And, as the words rain down, a lot of us never think to ask "What does she know of what she speaks?" If we would, though, we could quickly separate the preachers who truly know from the legion who don't. One way to approach this issue is to simply ask anyone who's preaching to you "How do you know that?" Another is to use a simple tool - The Bullshit Detector - from author and economist Thomas Sowell:

"Much of the self-righteous nonsense that abounds on so many subjects cannot stand up to three questions: Compared to what? At what cost? What are the hard facts?"

There is a flip-side to this coin, of course, and it concerns our own preaching.

Conversation:

• When you are teaching or preaching or selling or otherwise giving advice, do you routinely provide evidence that you know of what you speak? If so, how do you do it? Is what you provide sufficient? How do you know?
• If not, what is a case you can make for doing so? If you are able to build a strong case in favor of doing this, how would you go about making it a habit?
  

Afterwords:

"I am not ignorant that when we preach unworthily, it is not always quite in vain. There is a good ear, in some men, that draws supplies to virtue out of very indifferent nutriment. There is poetic truth concealed in all the common-places of prayer and of sermons, and though foolishly spoken, they may be wisely heard." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Some people do not listen to a speaker unless he speaks mathematically, others unless he gives instances, while others expect him to cite a poet as witness. And some want to have everything done accurately, while others are annoyed by accuracy. Hence one must be already trained to know how to take each sort of argument." - Aristotle

"After having propounded his famous theory of relativity, Albert Einstein would tour the various Universities in the United States, delivering lectures wherever he went. He was always accompanied by his faithful chauffeur, Harry, who would attend each of these lectures while seated in the back row! One fine day, after Einstein had finished a lecture and was coming out of the auditorium into his vehicle, Harry addresses him and says, 'Professor Einstein, I've heard your lecture on Relativity so many times, that if I were ever given the opportunity, I would be able to deliver it to perfection myself!' 'Very well,' replied Einstein, 'I'm going to Dartmouth next week. They don't know me there. You can deliver the lecture as Einstein, and I'll take your place as Harry!' And so it came to be ... Harry delivered the lecture to perfection, without a word out of place, while Einstein sat in the back row playing 'chauffeur', and enjoying a snooze for a change. Just as Harry was descending from the podium, however, one of the research assistants intercepted him, and began to ask him a question on the theory of relativity ... one that involved a lot of complex calculations and equations. Harry replied to the assistant 'The answer to this question is very simple! In fact, it's so simple, that I'm going to let my chauffeur answer it!'" - Source Unknown