the leadership dance

"Being demoralized and offended...never propelled anyone further along the path of creativity."

2011-10-26T21:24:00.004-05:00

This quote by Jean Flaherty in a blog from The Chronicle of Higher Education, caught my eye earlier this week. The rhetoric about education here in Texas when added to the economic realities most campuses are facing could easily lead people to feel demoralized, offended or both. This quote reminded me that my response to difficult times or comments is my choice. I can let myself be demoralized or I can choose to be creative in my reactions. I can hide my head in the sand and wish things were like they used to be or I can find ways to support the good work being done all around. Whether we realize it or not, we always have a choice in our response, at least in our attitude, even, or maybe especially in difficult times.

Our leadership task is to remember this fact and to help others find their way through the difficult times to creativity. Not one of the easier leadership tasks, but one of great importance. Good luck!

Best wishes,

Gage

Space for Quiet

2011-10-23T19:38:00.004-05:00

Each of us wants and needs to have space for quiet,

to get inspired.

Go outside, find space for those serene, lonely moments amidst the simple beauty of nature.

Connect with your inner self.

Be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature, and God.

Learn how to listen. You have to wait for clarity.

Just go with the flow and the answer will come.

Rest your gaze. Open your eyes,

for then one begins to see with the eyes of the heart.

Reflect on the beauty of a simple life.

Wise choice leads to feelings of liberation, even exhilaration.

Better follow your heart,

to trust it.

In the book Raw Art Journaling: Making Meaning, Making Art, author Quinn McDonald suggests a process for creating 'found poetry'. The above poem came from words I cut from a variety of articles printed in Yoga Journal and Oprah's magazine. I decided to share it today because I have had a couple of conversations lately regarding the need for leaders to find time for quiet and reflection. It's not easy to do, but it is one of the most important leadership tasks we have. I hope this poem will inspire you to make space in your busy life for quiet and that you are able to follow your heart to your best leadership.

Best wishes,

Gage

Leadership Courage

2011-08-01T21:30:00.004-05:00

I found a great quote today. "With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity." Keshavan Nair. I have to say I love this quote because it is the opposite of the way we usually think and talk about courage.

Courage is a big, blustery thing. Courage helps us stand up to the bullies of life. Heros have courage, not ordinary people. Courage is what is needed to do really Big Things like rescue a person in distress or save the corporation from bankruptcy. Courage is about leaping tall buildings and running faster than speeding bullets. Courage is what Leaders have - definitely with a capital L.

In my opinion those ideas about leadership are linked to the idea of Leadership as something that only special people can achieve, Leadership as ordained or only belonging to a special group of people, to the ones with the special titles.

But Nair’s quote points us in another direction. Look at all the words in this quote. Dare to risk, that sounds like the big blustery idea of courage and our traditional ideas of leadership. Strength and wisdom are words we use to describe leaders, but compassion and humility? Not the traditional words. Add them all together and the concept of courage becomes a little less blustery, but a great deal richer. Courage doesn’t take us over the tall buildings, but into conversation with others in a way that teaches us empathy and compassion. Courage may help us risk being humble enough to ask a question or let another lead rather than trusting only ourselves to complete the task.

Compassion and humility, in my opinion these are critical to effective leadership and Keshavan Nair reminds us that they are not easily lived, that it takes courage.

What other non-traditional traits or behaviors do you believe are essential for leaders? Where do you need courage to be the most effective leader possible? I hope you’ll share your answers with me.

Best wishes,

Gage

*Keshavan Nair was born in Patalia, India, and as a young man began his study of Gandhi. Educated in the British and American systems, Nair had a background in Eastern philosophy and religion, engineering, and decision and risk analysis. He was a corporate executive and served on the faculties of Ohio State University and the Indian Institute of Technology in Kampur, India. Nair passed away in 2002

E-mail as a Leadership Task

2011-07-18T22:15:00.003-05:00

When teaching about leadership, I remind participants that whether they realize it or not, their colleagues are watching them and paying attention to their behaviors. My usual examples are about whether leaders’ behaviors and actions are in sync. If you say people are important, do you actions show that people are important? There are numerous examples, but today I want to suggest that leaders need to pay attention to their e-mails. Think for a minute - what messages do you receive from the e-mails sent by the people in leadership in your organization; what messages do you send through your e-mails? I don’t mean in the text, I mean from the messages themselves, the number and the time they are sent.

Yes, it is important for a leader to inform others. In fact, one of the attributes of an effective leader is a willingness to share information rather than hoard it. Yet, if leaders don’t pay attention to the way they send e-mails, the information sharing may be more stressful than helpful. Leaders who send e-mails constantly, all weekend, at all hours of the day and night may think they are keeping staff informed, but in reality they are sending messages about expectations concerning the way to work in their organization. Often this ‘e-mail message’ is in direct contraction to stated messages about healthy work/life balance. Of course staff are quick to pick up on that message. A message of ‘do as I say, not as I do’ is never going to be believed by staff members.

As a leader in a large organization, I work the hours needed to get the job done, but I also practice creating a balanced life and I encourage that mix for the people I work with. As a result, once I get home, I glance at e-mail occasionally, but unless there is an emergency, I don’t respond until the next day. I rarely send an e-mail on the weekend or after traditional work hours unless there is a specific need.

E-mail management is a challenge for all of us in many ways. I just recently learned the term ‘e-mail bankruptcy’ though it has been around for a while. In case you don’t know it, people declare e-mail bankruptcy when they have gotten so far behind in their e-mails that they can never catch up – so they delete them all! (Does the very idea give you hives or a sense of relief? Both responses make sense to me.) What would happen if we changed our thoughts about e-mails from a management question to a leadership question? Thinking about the messages we send beyond the text by paying attention to the timing of our e-mails and the number of the e-mails is a leadership task. Take a moment to look at your Sent Mail and pay attention to details. Remember staff members pay attention to what their leaders do. How well are your words and actions matching? Are your e-mails sending the message you intend? Something to think about….

Best wishes,

Gage

Mission and Creativity

2011-07-03T13:09:00.000-05:00

This past week I interacted with two very different organizations, an airline and a college, but they had something in common – a strong sense of mission. The airline was Southwest Airlines, which is celebrating its 40^th anniversary. The Southwest mission says the airline is dedicated to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride and Company Spirit. Nowhere in that statement does it list the things needed to run an airline or even fly an airplane, but it sets a very clear tone. It also sets the mark for customer service and employee behavior. That mark leads to phenomenal stories of staff going above and beyond to help customers. That mark leaves Southwest with one of the best safety records in the industry even though safety is never mentioned in the mission statement. Neither are turnaround time, timely-departures, etc., all of which are ways in which Southwest excels.

I traveled on Southwest to work with the staff at a college in the south. I interviewed 16 people and read the survey results from about 40. In this economic environment, this small college is facing financial challenges severe enough that the division I was working with has cut 10 positions in the last year or so, resulting in several people working the equivalent of 2 or more jobs. And yet, while people ,of course, identified staffing as an area of concern, no one was complaining about it. One might expect the morale to be low, and people certainly are feeling anxiety, but pride was evident as they talked about their work and their college. I believe this was due to everyone having a clear sense of the mission. When I asked what should never be changed, no one repeated the mission word for word, but all of them talked about the same values and ideals – they have clarity and congruence in mission.

What I found interesting about these two organizations is the impact of this mission clarity on individual and organizational behavior. A well thought-out mission statement defines the boundaries for decision-making and program-development: in other words, a well-understood mission opens the possibility for creativity by the members of the organization. The amazing customer service stories from Southwest are possible because the employees understand the mission and know they not only have organizational space to be creative, they are encouraged to find the best way to make things right. In this college I visited, people know that times are tight, but they know what is important in this organization and within those boundaries they are being wonderfully creative in finding ways to create programs and solve problems that support the college’s purpose.

If you find yourself wondering why your organization isn’t more creative, perhaps it’s worth taking a step back to look at the mission. Do people understand it? Do organizational policy and decision making follow the mission? People who know they are in sync with the organizational mission will feel more comfortable trying new ideas in part because there is less risk that they will move outside the organizational tolerances. Supervisors will be more comfortable with staff initiative because they are confident people understand the necessary boundaries. What will members of your organization say if they were asked about their mission? I suspect those answers will tell you something important about organizational creativity.

Best wishes,

Gage

the leadership dance: 'The Only One Who Really Likes Change...

2011-06-26T21:35:00.000-05:00

the leadership dance: 'The Only One Who Really Likes Change...: "...is a wet baby.' Unk. Recently, I had occasion to talk about change as our organization prepares to experience a major change in many ..."

'The Only One Who Really Likes Change...

2011-06-26T12:26:00.003-05:00

...is a wet baby.' Unk.

Recently, I had occasion to talk about change as our organization prepares to experience a major change in many important processes. The reality is that even people who handle change well have something they don’t want anyone to mess with! It’s true in our organizations, but it’s just as true in our daily lives. And it is a rare person who goes through life able to stay flexible enough to keep trying new things as they go.

In a few days I turn 55 and the list of things I’ll never do does grow. I’ll never play a professional sport – not that such a goal was ever in my future, but it’s certainly not now. I’ll never get to ride on a supersonic jet that crosses the Atlantic Ocean and lands before it left. I don’t expect to reach the top of Mt. Everest. On the other hand, I have another list – the practice of yoga, teaching yoga, competing in national ballroom dance competitions, writing for people to read (this blog and my office’s bi-weekly newsletter to name two examples) – all things I’ve begun since I turned 40. None of these are really surprising as most flow from activities or kinds of activities I’ve done before and there wasn’t much resistance to overcome.

On the other hand, I’ve been sure for most of my life (54 years or so) that I’m not any more able to draw than, at 5”4’, I’m able to slam dunk a basketball. It didn’t matter that my husband, who can draw wonderfully has told me many times that if I would just take a class I could learn to draw. I knew better. Of course, you know the moral of the story. The picture at the top of this is something I’ve drawn. Now, I haven’t turned out to be an amazing prodigy, but who cares, I’m able to draw and I’m enjoying drawing.

There are so many ways our ideas about what we can and can’t do limit our ability to do those activities and many other things besides. One of the ways we can learn to handle change is to practice changing. One of the ways we can practice changing is to try new activities, stretch our ideas about what we can and can’t do, and in doing so, find out we can survive changes.

So what’s on your list of things you can’t do? Some may be realistic – no Olympic bobsledding for me. But some activities on the list may be there because you’re afraid of trying something new, or are unwilling to do something badly, or any other of the many reasons we’re sure that We. Can’t. Do It!

I suggest you actually write down your list of things you’ll never do and look at the list thoughtfully. You may have to admit that serving on the space shuttle may not be in your future. But you may also have to admit that there are items on the list that you just never tried. Try it – maybe you won’t be any good at it and you can say you were right. But maybe, just maybe, the worst will happen and you’ll have to admit your ideas were the only thing stopping you and you’ll actually learn a new skill!

Have fun,

Gage

Flow - The Motivating Leader

2011-06-21T08:56:00.005-05:00

Rereading Mihaly Csiksentmihalyi's work on flow made me wonder about the leader's role in creating flow experiences for the members of our organizations. This is much simplified but for the purposes of this quick note this definition will suffice: "Flow tends to occur when a person's skills are fully involved in overcoming a challenge that is just about manageable." If the challenges are too great for the person's skill, the person becomes anxious. If the challenges are too low, boredom can set it. This short definition has given me a great tool for analysis. If I'm feeling bored, then what do I need to do to challenge myself. If I'm feeling anxious in my work, what do I skills do I need to work onto be more able to handle the task at hand?

In the day-to-day reality of leadership, part of our task is to match skill sets with jobs that need to be done. I stayed at one university for eleven years, in part because my supervisor was able to find new things for me to do and to learn - in other words, she gave me challenges that were in reach but required me to be fully engaged in the work to do them well. Are you challenging the people you work with appropriately? If you are not, have you set up a culture that allows people to address it individually or ask for new opportunities or training as appropriate to the situation?

It's true that we can't really motivate others, but we can certainly demotivate them? We can also challenge and support them. What kind of leadership are you exercising? Is it more likely to produce anxiety, boredom or flow? What do you need to do to find the right level of challenge and skill for yourself and others? Again questions that only you can answer!

Good luck,

Gage

Quote from Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly (1997).

Questions and More Questions

2011-06-19T17:24:00.005-05:00

'What do I do when I work for a difficult boss, an autocrat, someone who squelches my creative endeavors?' - or any other variation that says, 'sure this workshop you're presenting sounds great, but it won't work in my world.' It's the most difficult question I receive when I present a workshop like The Creative Leader, because the hard reality is that there are no easy solutions to this difficult situation.

There are solutions, but one-size does not fit all circumstances. Each case is individual to the organization, the boss and the person asking the question. Thinking about it brings me back to the portion of the Leadership Dance workshop where I remind people that taking a job or joining and organization does not mean you give up all of your rights and responsibilities. In the Leadership Dance, I remind people that on the dance floor, if a leader isn't paying attention and tries to lead the follower into a move that is too difficult or potentially harmful to anyone on the dance floor, the follower is under no obligation to follow. The same is true in an organization.

Yes, every job I've ever known of has parts that we'd rather not do and rules we have to follow that seemed specifically designed to stop our creative impulses. In every job I've ever had, there have been moments when I was asked to do something I thought was headed in the wrong direction. But I've also understood that when people 'sit' in a different part of the organizational chart than I do, they often have a different picture of what the best solution might be, they are often more aware of important issues than I am, and much as I've hated to admit it at times, they have often made better decisions than I would have. And yet, there are lines that have to be drawn. We don't give up our own responsibility for our health, safety, values and ethics when we go to work for someone. Sometimes that refusal may mean we have to leave the organization. The more we have invested in an organization or the bigger our personal obligations, the harder it is refuse to follow the lead, but that doesn't relieve us of our responsibilities for ethical action.

Thus the answer to that difficult question is that each of us has to make a personal determination about the benefits and challenges of our individual work situation. What can we change? What conversations can we have with our supervisor? What do we love about the job that outweighs the challenges? When it is so bad that it is time to look for another position, as difficult as that may be? Questions in answer to a question - frustrating I know. While a friend or mentor or colleague may be able to help us analyze the situation, like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, there is only one person who can give the ultimate answer to the question - the person who asked it has the answer all along.

Best wishes,

Gage

Building Bridges as a Leadership Task

2011-06-11T13:29:00.007-05:00

This week I had the opportunity to be with the great folks of the Collegiate Information and Visitors Centers Association during their conference in San Antonio. Based on the people I know from this group they are an energetic, enthusiastic group of people who care about the work that they do on college campuses across the country. The theme of their conference was Bridges to Best Practices which I borrowed for the title of my presentation at their closing plenary session.

Bridges help us get across difficulties. Sometimes those difficulties are rapidly flowing rivers, but sometimes those difficulties are resource issues, rules or practices or the ‘silos’ we build in our organizations. Bridges are ways across those barriers to the implementation of new practices. Bridges are connections that help us share resources whether those resources are dollars or ideas. Building bridges – developing relationships, creating processes, finding new ways to follow the rules or new rules to follow – this is leadership.

If you Google the phrase ‘how to build a bridge’ you find many websites that will help you build bridges out of many materials, including spaghetti. But the website I used in my presentation was a bit more practical. (The cite is at the bottom.) It had important reminders such as “…you do not see bridges going up overnight and it takes a skilled engineer to master this craft. Bridges can take months, possibly years to build.” This is true in organizations as well. It takes time and skill (we call it leadership) to develop the complex bridges needed to make organizations run well. Short changing this process causes problems down the road in both literal and metaphorical bridges.

There are different kinds of bridges – arch, suspension, beam, etc., and the bridge-builder needs to know which kind is best suited for the situation. Planning, excavation, leveling the ground, building the supports are all critical to bridge building. Clearly, it is not for the faint of heart.

“One of the last steps, probably the most important, would be to pave the bridge.” The bridge has to be effective, and useable by many people for many purposes. In relationship building the details need taken care of as well.

“When this is all finished, call a [big] party and roll out the red carpet.” We need to remember to celebrate our successes. Maybe it needs a party or maybe the two people who have done the hard work of bridge building have a quiet cup of coffee together. Whatever seems to fit, leaders need to recognize successes, large and small. Often we forget to recognize something important but intangible, like the bridges we build in our organizations and that may be the most beneficial task of all.

To paraphrase Ralph Ellison, "[Leadership] is all a matter of building bridges."

Best wishes,

Gagedge

monsterguide.net/how-to-build-a-bridge

The Creative Leader Workshop

2011-06-05T14:07:00.005-05:00

Last week, I mentioned being intrigued by comments from participants in the workshop entitled the Creative Leader. Before I can share the comment, I need to explain about one part of the workshop.

Over time I have learned that there are many ways to teach leadership concepts and I have used two of my favorite activities as extended metaphors to engage people in an exploration of different aspects of leadership. Leadership Dance and Leadership Yoga are two of the more popular results of this creative effort. Based on comments over the years, this way of using activities or hobbies that I enjoy strikes people as very unusual, as something they are not able to do. So The Creative Leader is one workshop designed to help people demystify this creative process.

The primary activity is simple. I ask everyone in the room to put their favorite hobby on a scrap of paper and hand it over to me. I shuffle them while they get organized into smaller groups of 5-7 people. Then each group draws one hobby from those in my hands. Once we're clear on what the hobby is, some are a bit obscure, I announce that their task is to design a leadership workshop based on that hobby and they have ten minutes to do so.

To the amazement of most participants, they are able to complete the assignment. Some hobbies work better for the topic of leadership than others. Some groups get more involved in their workshop than other groups. Some are very funny and clever whether or not they will actually work. A couple of ideas have been sheer genius! But everyone comes up with enough that with very little work they could develop a full-fledged workshop.

The comment I want to share is a variation on this theme. - 'I never would have thought we could come up with so many workable (clever, creative, useable) ideas so quickly.' It reminds me yet again, that so often it is our ideas about what we can and can't do that limit us. Much more so than money, or time, or The Rules. Our preconceived notions about how much time brainstorming takes keeps us from using small bits of time well. Our conception about our creative ability or the creative ability of others can mean we don't even try something different.

Next time you're stuck and need an idea for a workshop or a presentation or an article, pull out your favorite hobby, something you know well and apply it to the topic at hand. Maybe it will work perfectly, maybe it won't. But I can guarantee you, it will help you find a fresh way of looking at the topic. And that's an important leadership skill for all of us.

Best wishes,

Gage

Jessi Arrington: Wearing nothing new | Video on TED.com

2011-06-03T14:06:00.000-05:00

Jessi Arrington: Wearing nothing new | Video on TED.com

The Creative Leader

2011-05-29T15:27:00.003-05:00

Last fall at a professional conference I led a workshop called The Creative Leader. I've repeated the same workshop with other groups since then and I've been intrigued by some of the insights and comments that have come my way in each of them.

The first insight happened when I heard myself saying to the first group that I had just realized that the title "Creative Leader" was redundant. It's not possible to be an effective leader if you don't exercise creativity of some sort. I suspect most of the people in that session either considered themselves leaders or someone else did and yet less than half of them raised their hands when I asked if they thought they were creative. Again and again, I realize how limited and limiting our ideas about creativity are. We rarely hear leadership talked about as a creative act, let alone a creative art and yet we consider vision a key leadership skill. Isn't vision the ability to imagine something different, a new product, a new process, a new something? Leaders are supposed to help us solve our problems and to do that, they have to be able to think of different ways of being, interacting, of working on the issue at hand. Yet, again, we rarely credit that as creativity.

Leadership and creativity go hand-in-hand. We shortchange ourselves and the people with whom we interact when we don't acknowledge acts of creativity. Denying our own creativity, we don't recognize it, let alone encourage it, in others. As a result we miss opportunities to make positive change, to develop healthy work places, to make our work more enjoyable, the list goes on and on.

Where have you seen creative leadership? What supports or hinders your ability to be creative in your work (paid or otherwise.)? Any chance it's just your definition that's getting in your way? I'm curious to hear your insights and comments. Next time I'll share some more of mine.

Best wishes,

Gage

A Moment of Reflection

2011-05-24T08:53:00.004-05:00

Unfortunately, too often it’s the people’s failures that get them to reflect on their experiences. When you’re going along and everything is working well, you don’t sit down and reflect. Which is exactly the moment when you should do it.” ~ Warren Bennis quoting Barbara Corday

Here's a simple quick way to add some times of reflection into your day.

First, grab a sheet of paper and a pen and place them both next to your keyboard.

Next, pick one meeting or conversation that you had today. It could be a meeting that went well or one that was difficult. Your choice, and there is no right or wrong. Just grab the first one that came to mind when you read the first sentence of this paragraph.

As you read this sentence, take a deep breath and then let it out slowly. I’m willing to bet that, whether you intended it or not, just reading that sentence helped your breathing change. Try it one more time – deep breath in and deep breath out.

Now, pick up your pen and on your sheet of paper answer these two questions about the meeting or conversation you selected. (And yes, I really mean write it down. The act of writing helps focus our thoughts and helps us articulate those thoughts more fully. Then our ideas are captured and we remember them more accurately.)

1) What’s one thing I learned from this meeting/conversation?

2) What’s one question I still have?

Simple, isn't it? Reflection is an important leadership task that we make harder than it actually is. Try this every day for the week and at the end of the week spend just a bit longer and see what you have learned. I promise - it's worth the effort.

Best of luck,

Gage

Control Issues

2010-11-14T14:10:00.002-06:00

"The best job goes to the person who can get it done without passing the buck or coming back with excuses." Napoleon Hill

Here’s what I’ve learned from competitive ballroom dancing – winning is not in my control. I can practice my feet off, dance my best dance ever and still not earn a first place. Maybe there was somebody on the floor who is a better dancer than I am. Maybe there was a dancer there at my level who danced her best dance ever! Maybe the judges were watching when I made my only mistake of the entire heat. Whatever the reason, a hard reality of competition is that the result is not in my control.

However, there are many things in my control and they all start with my attitude. I can choose to do my very best at every practice session or I can coast through because I’m kinda tired that day. I can choose to work on the tiniest little details that most people never see because I know that every detail adds to the final package or I can be lazy about those ‘picky’ bits. I can walk out onto the dance floor with confidence – even if I know my knees are shaking. When I compete with some of the best dancers in the state, I can let that fact intimidate me or push me to show I deserve to be there as well. Those things are completely up to me.

My experience tells me that if I pick the hard work choice, the attention to detail choice, the positive attitude choice, the result is better every time. Not that I’ll win every time, but I know that whatever the final result, I’m happier with the experience. I’ve had more fun because I danced as well as I could. I also know that over time, I’ve won more heats with that attitude than with the negative one. So if I bring the right attitude with me, over time the win/loss record takes care of itself.

The same is true in leadership. I can’t always control the resources nor can I control the results every time. But I can always choose how I approach a situation. I can pay attention to the details no one else notices and appreciate those who are managing those details well or I can ignore them. I can choose to do my best work and design situations so staff members have a chance to do their best work. I can support creativity or squelch it and then wonder why no one tries anything new.

As in competitive dancing, or any sort of work really, the end result is not entirely in my control. There are many situations and people who can get in the way (literally on the dance floor) of a ‘win’. But my attitude and my effort, my attention and my appreciation for work well done, these and more are in my control. Experience tells me in my leadership work as in my dancing, that when I choose the positive side of the equation, I’m happier with the experience whatever the details of the result.
All the best,

Gage

Ideas and Actions

2010-10-17T13:32:00.006-05:00

“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world.” Joel Barker

In the latest edition of the UTSA Student Affairs staff newsletter, I wrote about a woman who made a very large gift to the university to fund scholarships. Years earlier, she had heard students discussing the difficulties of paying for college. What makes her different from so many of us is that instead of ignoring what she heard, instead of feeling sorry for the students, instead of wishing the world was otherwise, she did something to make a difference. She started a scholarship fund with a small donation and she kept adding to it throughout her life, finally ending with a multi-million dollar bequest. She saw a need and took action.

She saw a need and took action. I don’t think this characteristic by itself defines a leader, but I’m beginning to wonder if it is possible for leadership to exist without it. Last week I wondered if the term ‘creative leader’ was redundant, since leaders have to be able to see new possibilities, new ways of doing, new ways of being and that seems to be the very definition of creativity. Here is the definition from dictionary.com “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination”. I still think creative leader is redundant, but it’s not enough. Having a new idea is fantastic, seeing a new way to meet a need is wonderful, but without the next step of ‘taking action’, there’s not much leadership in evidence. While lead is not always a verb, in this context, lead is an action word. A person has to be moving us forward in one sense or another for us to consider it leadership. It may be from one state of being to another, but I think change is required.

And, as I’ve said before, there have to be other people involved. If I walk out of the room saying ‘Follow me’ and everyone stays in their chairs, there is not a whole lot of leading going on!

Yesterday I had the privilege of attending TEDx San Antonio* and I listened to more than a dozen people who exemplified leadership. Their initiatives ranged from addressing hunger to ending the death penalty, from fostering creativity in children to helping people who are paralyzed walk – they covered a very wide range of issues and ideas. All of them have their own style, their own focus, their own way of thinking about issues, but all of them have these characteristics:

^They pay attention to the world around them.
^They see a need and believe they can make a difference.
^They find others who know about and care about this need they have identified.
^They are willing and eager to learn.
^They are able to step out on their own if need be, but able and willing to connect with others.
^They envision a world that is different from and better than the one that currently exists.
^They take action.

If the quote above is right, these folks are going to change the world by changing their part of it – sounds like leadership to me.

Best wishes,

Gage

*http://www.tedxsanantonio.com/

“Creativity Is A Habit…”

2010-10-11T18:10:00.004-05:00

“Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is a result of good work habits. That’s it in a nutshell.” Twyla Tharp in The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life

About half the room raised their hands when I asked the question ‘who thinks they are creative?'. That was better than usual, attributable in part to the fact that they had chosen to be in a workshop called ‘The Creative Leader.’ But still there was half a room that defined themselves as ‘not creative.’ I understand that. After all, as I’ve written before, I used to be part of the second half.

What I’ve come to understand is that when we think of creativity, we tend to think of CREATIVITY! rather than just lil’ ol’ creativity. We don’t want to admit it, but deep down inside we seem to believe creativity means we have to paint or draw beautifully, or write the Great American Novel or sculpt large statues or some such Huge Project. But thinking this way, we shortchange ourselves and our opportunities to use our creative muscles. I love the quote from Twyla Tharp it turns the usual idea about creativity on its head – not the bolt of lightning from the blue, but something needs to be worked at regularly. Creativity is a much more work-a-day word than we’d like to believe. Because after all if creativity is not reserved for the gifted, then maybe we have some responsibility for the creative energy in our organizations and in our life.

Several years ago I took a graduate class in the MBA program entitled, “Literature, Leadership, and the Individual.” We read novels to study leadership. The premise was that novelists envision new worlds or reimagine this world in new ways and that leaders need to be able to do just that – envision new ways for their organizations to work or envision entirely new organizations. Sounds like creativity to me. In fact, during the workshop, I heard myself saying that the title “Creative Leader” was actually redundant. I’m not sure it’s possible to be a leader if you can’t be creative in someway or another. Leaders should help us move into the new; at the very least leaders need to help us figure out how to respond to the changes that always come toward us. It seems to me that means true leaders are creative.

As leaders we need to get in the habit of being creative – in any way you like. Try learning something new. Learning to paint will help you see the world in new ways. Learning to dance will help you move through the world using new muscles. Or try doing something old in a new way. The exercise I created for this workshop was to ask everyone to list a favorite hobby on a piece of paper. Then in small groups, they drew from the pile and found a hobby. Then they had to create a leadership workshop based on something from that hobby. Some were a little tricky, but we got a great list: Leadership Lessons from a 2-year old, Learning Leading Qualities from Kids; Lessons from Reality TV, and a cooking workshop to name a few. Try it – what workshop can you develop using your favorite hobby? That’s where my workshops Leadership Dance and Leadership Yoga came from. If you do this, you get the additional benefit of bringing something you love into your work!
I hope all of you will give this a try and then share your ideas in the comments. I’d love to see the results of your creative energy!

Good luck,

Gage

Leading from the Middle -Part 2 - The Butterfly Effect

2010-09-26T14:52:00.006-05:00

I’m often intrigued by the idea of weather, imagining what it must have been like before radar and satellites. Now, we watch hurricanes form off the coast of Africa and we can follow their route across the Atlantic to our front door off the Gulf of Mexico. As we see the storms move into the Midwest, we have at least a marginal understanding of where our weather comes from. But 100 years ago, probably even less, the storms had no such history. Probably a weather-knowledgeable person understood that the changes in humidity or the clouds heralded a storm in the near future, but I doubt many people thought of the storm starting in Africa.

We now have some understanding of the way in which something as far away as Africa can have an impact on us. We act as if we understand it when we toss around the phrase ‘the butterfly effect’ as a shorthand way to express the idea that a small change on the other side of the world can impact our lives. But I wonder how often we bring that concept into our day-to-day lives of our organizations. I’m not sure we think about it very often and, I suspect, we consciously act on it even more rarely. Within our organizations, little behaviors and actions can have as much impact as the major policies and those little behaviors and actions come from each one of us.

In her book, Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World, author Margaret Wheatley writes about this idea saying that organizations have self-similar behaviors that are exhibited by all of the people in an organization no matter what their position or work might be.

“These recurring patterns of behavior are what many call the culture of the organization…. By observing the behavior of a production floor employee or a senior executive you can tell what the organizations values and how it chooses to do its work. You hear the values referred to even in causal conversation…. [This similarity] is achieved not through compliance to an exhausting set of standards and rules, but from a few simple principles that everyone is accountable for, operating in a condition of individual freedom.”

If it is this repetition of behaviors that creates the culture of the organization, then the way to change the culture is to start changing behaviors. At various times in different organizations, I’ve worked with staff members to find ways to improve the way we work together. After working at it awhile and seeing some change, people begin to like it and wish the entire organization was working on the same challenges. My response to them is always the same, we can only work on our own behavior and interactions, but I believe that the changes we make, if they are good ones, will begin to exert influence beyond our part of the organization. And I’ve found that to be true. So if you think your organizational culture is negative, first look at what you’re doing to support that negativity and stop doing it. Second, identify more positive behaviors you can begin to exhibit, start doing those and watch what happens. It may take a while, but don’t get discouraged. If that little butterfly flapping its wings in Hong Kong can start a tropical storm in Africa that then dumps rain on Texas, surely we can have an impact on the organizations we lead.

Good luck,

Gage

Leading From the Middle

2010-09-19T18:09:00.005-05:00

In the past couple of years I have developed a few workshops that I have now taught multiple times. While each basic workshop always addresses the same premises they are always slightly different because the members of each group bring their own experiences, insights and questions to the discussion. I set up a structure and purpose, but the interactions between me and the participants and, even more importantly, between the participants themselves create the real dynamic and benefit of the workshop. As a general rule, my workshops and conference presentations are highly interactive and usually that makes for a very fun and creative learning session. However, the quality of each session depends much more on the willingness of the participants to step out of their comfort zones and interact with each other than it does on what I have designed. The workshop called the Leadership Dance which is designed to help participants experience the dynamics of leading and following is a great example of this reality. If no one was willing to get up and dance with me, the workshop would be a complete flop.

In the same way, if the members of an organization are unwilling to work to their highest potential, if they are unwilling to take responsibility for the success of the venture, if they are unwilling to be creative, there is no way for a leader to be successful. During the workshop, I often hear myself saying, ‘If you hear yourself complaining about your organization’s leadership, perhaps you need to stop and see how you are contributing to the success or failure of the leadership dynamic’.

Which brings us back to the title. Now, I know that in big organizations many of us don’t have a chance to create the structure or to change the rules in the Big Book of Rules that all large organizations have. Nor can we all serve as President. However, as a speaker I heard this past week said– all systems are perfectly designed to create the results we observe – therefore, if we don’t like the results we have to figure out someway to change the system. And the very simplest way, and one that is completely under our control, is the one suggested by Mahatma Ghandi - “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” So if you hear yourself complaining about the leadership of your organization, stop for a moment and examine your own leadership. If we don’t like the results we are seeing in the work of our organization, it’s worth taking a look to see how we are contributing to those results. And then we need to take some time to consider what we might change in our own behavior or department that will improve things.

Change in any organization comes slowly. The change I make won’t create change in the organization tomorrow and it may be a while before the response becomes obvious, but when one part of a system changes, the rest will change in response in some way or another. The reality is that the only change over which I have any control is the change in my actions or my area of responsibility. When we make positive changes in ourselves or our departments and thereby create the possibility of change in the larger organizations, that’s leading from the middle and it is a powerful form of leadership available to all of us.

Good luck,
Gage

"Observe due measure, for right timing is in all things the most important factor."

2010-09-12T15:29:00.004-05:00

Now that the academic year is in full swing, it’s time for me to start writing this blog again. For me this past month or so was first a time of quiet and then a busy time at work, so I let myself take a break. Part of dancing is paying attention to rhythm and timing. If you’ve ever tried dancing with a partner who doesn’t understand or doesn’t pay attention to rhythm and timing, you know how important it is. There’s a reason exercise classes use music – it does help keep the energy level up, but it also helps even the most rhythm challenged of us keep out of everyone else’s way.

It’s important to understand our own rhythms. Sometimes we need to get up and really move and get things done and sometimes we need to sit still and be quiet. The more we understand our rhythms and find ways to live in sync with those rhythms, the smoother our life dance becomes. It’s true in our home life as well. If my rhythm is the tortoise’s slow and steady wins the race and I share my living space with someone who prefers to emulate the hare, then at times we’re likely to have conflict. These differences can also work to our benefit if we let them. The partner who likes to get up and go can energize the ‘tortoise’. The partner who needs time to recharge and reflect can help the ‘hare’ learn the benefit of a little quiet time.

This understanding of timing and rhythm is also an important skill for leaders. There are times to push and people who need pushing; there are times to stop and reflect and help others do the same. There are people who need encouraged to step out of their comfort zones; there are people who need to be encouraged to stay within the rules and boundaries. And just to confuse the issue, some people need both.

Organizations have rhythms too. The rhythms may be based on the deadlines of the work or the style of the leader. Timing may be different throughout the year. External factors have an impact. The permutations and possibilities are nearly endless and leaders need to pay attention to each variable and to the interplay of them all.

When we stop to think about it, it can be a bit overwhelming. However, the simplest and most important way to develop this leadership skill of understanding organizational and staff rhythms and timing is to pay attention to ourselves. As we begin to understand about our own rhythms and timing, we become more in sync with the rhythms and timing of the people around us and the organizations we are part of.

So do you need a break or do you need to get up and go? What about the people around you? Just a little something to pay attention to this next week as you dance along your way.

Take care,

Gage

* The quote is by Hesiod dating 800 BC.

Okay this next part is just silly, but in looking for a quote about rhythm or timing I found this limerick and it made me laugh so I'm sharing it with you. It's attributed to Anonymous

There was a young woman named Jenny,
Whose limericks weren't worth a penny.
Her rhythm and rhyme
Were perfectly fine
But whenever she tried to write any,
She always had one line too many.

"We did it ourselves."

2010-08-08T13:53:00.004-05:00

The last time I taught a formal class on Leadership, one of the students withdrew because he wanted to read and discuss famous leaders and that was not how the class was structured. Certainly, there are lessons to be learned by studying individual leaders, but when I teach about leadership I actually have the opposite goal – to broaden our perspective of leadership and be able to see it as a dynamic relationship between the ‘leader’, the ‘follower’ and the situation.

Have you ever stood up in front of an audience or a class and tried to engage them in the presentation or in a class activity only to have the entire room sit and stare at you? If you have then you know that you are only as good a presenter or teacher as the interaction with the audience or class allows you to be. The same is true of leadership. It’s possible to have great leadership skills and then find yourself in a situation in which the followers stand in front of you with their arms folded (sometimes literally) and dare you to make a difference. The hard truth is that the leader can have great ideas, but if no one else thinks they’re great and no one goes to the trouble to try and implement these fine ideas, nothing will happen.

It’s intriguing to observe how this works. At the large staff meeting, The Leader, i.e., the person with the biggest title, introduces a new initiative to the leadership team; even better the leadership team develops this new initiative as a group. Every one is excited and ready to go. In my experience that’s when the real leaders of the organization make their presence felt. They are the ones who, in the midst of all the day-to-day tasks that have to be done, bring the new idea into reality. Meanwhile other department heads make half-hearted attempts or none at all. Now, in most organizations, The Leader has ways to encourage and compel implementation, but true success or failure is dependent on the number of people who choose (an important word) to find ways to move the new initiative forward. True success also depends on the number of people who are creative in fitting implementation into their areas of responsibility. Finally, true success depends on follower/leaders who let The Leader know when the ideas are not working in the real world and make helpful suggestions to adapt the concepts to make them work.

Leadership is a partnership. It takes leaders and followers working together in the situation in which they find themselves for good leadership to exist. That’s why for me, while it is interesting to study great leaders, if in that study you don’t pay attention to the situation and the other members of the organization, you will never have a true picture of leadership. As Lao-Tzu says in his famous 17th verse of the Tao Te Ching,

“The great leader speaks little.
He never speaks carelessly.
He works without self-interest and leaves no trace.
When all is finished, the people say, 'We did it ourselves.'”

And they are correct.

Take care,

Gage

This translation of the Tao Te Ching comes from Wayne Dyer's Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao

"Vacation used to be a luxury....

2010-07-25T16:47:00.006-05:00

... however, in today's world, it has become a necessity." Unknown

Today, I’m wrapping up my vacation and tomorrow I head back to work. I’ll pay for being gone. When I left the office, I managed to get my e-mail inbox down to zero – it won’t be zero now and it will be a while before I’m caught up. There are some tasks that I let sit for two weeks and I’ll need to get started on them again. I know I have a workshop to lead on Tuesday and a committee meeting on Monday in addition to regular meetings so there will be no easing back into the action when I return.

That’s not meant to be a list of complaints; it’s just the reality of taking time away from a busy job. As a result, many people choose not to take vacation or they only take little bits of time away. Then even when they are away from the job, they spend time answering e-mail and working on projects - not much of a break. People in leadership positions are particularly prone to this behavior. After all if they are gone, someone else must pick up the work and keep things going. This can create one of two worries – either we worry that the work won’t get done right without us or we learn that we aren’t indispensible. It’s hard to know which worry is scarier, so some people worry about both!

Yet the reality is that we all need time away and perhaps effective leaders need the time away more than most. Have you ever been frustrated working on a jigsaw puzzle? Then you get up and walk away for a while and when you come back not only do you find the piece immediately, you can work a large section quickly. It also works with crossword puzzles and anytime you are stuck in a project. Time away, no matter what you do with it, refreshes your vision, your ideas, and your perspective in many ways.

Think for a moment about the word ‘recreation.’ One dictionary defines it as ‘refreshment of one's mind or body after work, through activity that amuses or stimulates’; another defines it as ‘refreshment of health or spirits by relaxation and enjoyment’. But there’s a third way to think about it. When you split the word it becomes re-creation meaning re-newal. And that’s the most important reason to take vacation. It may be hard to get away, it may be hard work when you come back, but to continuing being effective creative leaders, we need to take a break – a real one – and come back renewed and refreshed and ready to do our best work. Vacation as a leadership skill - who knew?

Take care,

Gage

I don't know what to write today!

2010-07-11T17:23:00.003-05:00

Sometimes as leaders we are faced with an assignment that befuddles us in some way. It may be that we don't really know how to do the task. It could be that we have a lot on our plate and we can't fathom how we fit in one more item. Sometimes the problem is that there is a deadline and that can be paralyzing; other times the problem is there is no deadline and the task falls to the bottom of the pile of things we have to get done. Sometimes I don't have a single idea about how to get started, at others we have too many ideas and can't pick out one of them to focus on.

That last one is where I am today. I have a number of half-baked ideas and can't seem to get any of them to gel in a way that seems useful or even barely sensible. So I have a choice, as I do every Sunday and what I'm choosing to do about it tells something about my leadership style. I'm choosing to admit that I don't know what to do today. I'm choosing to admit that ideas don't flow from my pen to the page every time I sit down to write. In other words I'm choosing to admit that I'm human.

It seems to me that a fundamental problem with leadership is that leaders are afraid to admit that they are human. And there are good reasons for that fear. It's not irrational. There are people who will use the fact that leaders don't have all the answers against them - even the very people who appointed, elected, hired the leader will do this sometimes. And yet I believe that the fact that leaders feel the need to hide their flaws. their questions, or the fact that they don't have all the answers is one of the major reasons that leaders fail. The need to hide who we really are and that we really aren't perfect can result in leaders' unwillingness to ask questions and their inability to seek advice and counsel from people who have differing ideas. This leads to the failures we have seen in the news. On a smaller scale, it can result in workplaces that stifle rather than support creativity, in offices where it is hard to tell the hard truth and, in organizations that are miserable.

If we want to create healthy, honest, creative organizations of any kind, it is important for leaders to be forthright about their strengths and weaknesses. It is important for leaders to make it possible for people to speak the truth. Sometimes, in admitting that we are lost and confused we find a way to lead effectively, we manage to make a difference in our organizations and, as you can read here today, we find a way to complete the task before us.

Take care,

Gage

"You can not lead where you do not go." Don Ward

2010-06-27T17:01:00.004-05:00

A couple of weeks ago, I attended a professional conference and presented a program there. I hadn’t submitted a proposal in some time, but decided that I needed to start again. I’ve realized that if I’m tired of sitting through ‘sit and listen’ presentations on the same old topics, I need to step out there and do something different. So I submitted a proposal to present ‘The Leadership Dance’ even though there was a possibility that no one would show up or like it if they did.

I’ve mentioned this workshop before (Stepped On Anyone’s Toes Lately) and in its full form it takes at least an hour and a half. I only had 60 minutes which meant I would not be able to do the full workshop. Instead I started by explaining the history of the workshop and its purpose of creating an opportunity for participants to experience the partnership aspect of leadership. I explained kinesthetic learning (briefly, it is learning by doing rather than by listening or reading). Kinesthetic learning is an appropriate style for this workshop since there is really only one way to learn to be an effective leader and that's by actually practicing leadership. Then I told them that they were the brave group who would choose to attend a session with the words lively, interactive, and dance in the description and asked them to move the chairs back against the walls.

There was a fair amount of nervous laughter at this point and one person actually left the room, but the rest stayed and were good enough sports to give it a try - though one person told me later he had been pretty resistant to the idea at first. For the next 30 minutes we had a dance lesson and each person had a chance to serve as a leader and as a follower and then we talked about their experiences. Based on their comments and evaluations, participants both enjoyed the session and learned something, so it was a successful endeavor.

I share this story for two reasons. First, when you do something that is unusual, you take the chance that some people will be resistant to the idea. However, while some people will walk away from the opportunity presented, others will hang in there. Of course, those who hang in there may not like it. But that's no reason to refrain from taking the chance. If we can just get past our fear that we'll look foolish or that people won't understand what we're trying to do, our possibilities to be creative, to teach, to lead will expand immensely.

This is, of course, the second reason to share this story. Some participants said they gained a new understanding of leading and following. Others commented that they would now try to find creative ways to do their work. Still others asked for further information about the exercises in the larger workshop. In other words, they were engaged in learning. I've presented the Leadership Dance many times to a wide variety of groups, some of which were very surprised by what they were expected to do. But as one person told me, they may joke about having had to dance, but they remember it and that's more than usually happens after a speech. Learning something new often requires the learner to be a bit uncomfortable; seems only fair that the teacher ought to be a bit uncomfortable sometimes too.

So what are you not doing because it's a bit risky? Is there a time or a place when you might just risk testing out that new way of doing things? After all, a significant part of leading is asking a group to go someplace or do something new; shouldn't leaders be willing to try something new as well?

Take care,

Gage

Silence is Golden

2010-06-20T18:48:00.002-05:00

I've spent the last couple of days participating in a retreat based on Parker Palmer's book A Hidden Wholeness. The main purpose of the work is to take the time to stop, be in community, and listen to one's inner teacher. And there is really only one way to hear that teacher and that is to be in silence.

The retreat was held at Pendle Hill, a Quaker center for study and contemplation. As a result, many though not all of the participants were Quakers and one of the opportunities for participants was the chance to join the people who live and work here in Meeting for Worship. I had never attended a Quaker meeting before, but I quickly learned that it is all about silence. Most of the half hour was quiet, sometimes a person will stand up and speak, but maybe not. There is time for announcements at the end and that is all. Each individual finds their own way in the stillness.

Most groups have trouble with extended silence. We feel compelled to fill the silence even if we don't have something new to add. But there is really only one way to truly listen, only one way to really hear what the other person is trying to say and that is to sit quietly, silently. The next time someone comes to you with an issue, try holding the silence. After they have told you what they came to say, what would happen if you just sat quietly for a moment or two? Yes, it might be awkward for you and for them, but they might find they have something else to say and that last bit might be the most important part of all. Larry Spears, former director of the Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership says listening is a servant leader's most important skill. Listening deeply requires the ability to hold the silence, internally and externally, to give people time and space to find what they need to say.

So this week, try giving the gift of silence to others and to yourself. You might be surprised what you hear.

Take care,

Gage

Giving Up Control

2010-06-13T20:19:00.004-05:00

I've been traveling this weekend and I'm reminded again that air travel is a great way to practice the experience of being out of control - literally. When I travel by air, I can't make the plane take off, I can't make it land when or even where I want to, and I certainly can't make my luggage show up at the right airport. It's a lesson in patience many passengers would do well to practice.

So what's that got to do with leadership? After all, leaders are supposed to be in control of what happens in their organizations, aren't they? In fact, one style of leadership is even called command and control. However, no matter how hard a leader might try to control all aspects of an organization, it's not really possible. Margaret Wheatley says part of our challenge in leaders is that we confuse order and control. She goes on to say, "What if we could reframe the search? What if we stopped looking for control and begin in earnest the search for order.... (The) basic shift needs to be from control to order, from a reliance on formal authority and procedures to a reliance on the self-organizing principles of people..."

This means a very different sort of leadership is needed, a kind of leadership that allows others to do their job well without the leader's needing to control every instance of the work. It requires different kinds of training and hiring, most of all it requires communication and great trust.

Trust like the kind we put in airlines. And we know, for all the terrible headlines on one end of the spectrum and petty annoyances on the other end, the airlines actually do quite well. After all, I don't want them to take off when the plane needs maintenance or the weather is really bad no matter how important I think my timeline. And one way or another I've always ended up back home and I had very little to do with it. Patience, trust, letting go of our needs for control, more leadership skills to think about.

Take care,

Gage

Time Well Spent

2010-06-06T16:53:00.005-05:00

This past week I have been reminded, yet again, of the importance of communication. I know I’m not alone in knowing this leadership reality and still struggling to be effective in my communications. There are many reasons effective communication is challenging. For one, we each have preferred methods both for receiving communications and sending them. Mismatches in these styles can hamper our ability to communicate. We also have differences in our preferences regarding the level of communication. Some of us like lots of detail and want to hear from our colleagues continuously; others of us prefer the big picture and only want to know when it’s something big – of course we need to understand their definition of big. Sometimes we only want to hear the good news. Unfortunately, as Kim Campbell* puts it, “If you don’t like bad news, you should get out of the leadership business. Your job is to hear as much bad news as there is out there and to figure out ways of dealing with it.”

While all of these are real issues in communication, I sometimes think the biggest problem is time. Effective communication takes time. We have to pay attention to what information we are receiving and evaluate it. We have to decide what needs to be shared and with whom. We have to consider who needs to hear this information and how rapidly and in what format. Does it need to be face-to-face? Will a phone call do? What about e-mail? And then we have to ignore all the other demands on our attention and actually communicate.

Then there’s the public aspect of communication. When we have formal leadership roles, our public communication may be even more critical and time-consuming. As leaders we have to choose our messages carefully and we have to repeat those select messages multiple times. It’s not that people aren’t listening to us; it’s that they too have multiple demands on their time and attention and we need to recognize and honor that.

And last, but definitely not least, is the other side of communication. As Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall said, “Listening well is as powerful a means of communication and influence as to talk well.” In order to be effective in our communications we must listen well and, in this day of e-mail, read well. In other words, we must be open to hearing what others have to tell us. And again, this takes time. It also takes a willingness to set aside our need to be heard and that may be the toughest part of communication there is.

So, this week, I challenge each of us to find time for effective communication. It saves time in the long run, but more importantly it helps all of us be better leaders and work together more effectively and that’s always time well spent.

Take care,

Gage

*The book Everyone Leads attributes this quote to Kim Campbell with no further identification and I can’t find it elsewhere. However, Kim Campbell the former, and to date, only female, Canadian Prime Minister speaks and writes on leadership including at this blog http://www.bitesizechunks.org/blog/ so I believe she is the likely author.

Ideas with Flair

2010-05-31T17:31:00.002-05:00

As I’ve written before, for years I was one of those folks who would answer ‘no’ to the question ‘are you creative?’ That is until my husband pointed out that I was a good problem-solver and that problem-solving requires creativity. Ok, sounds pretty obvious, but I had a narrow definition of creativity and not until this discussion did I understand that.

We value problem-solving in the organizational world meaning we value creativity, though like me, many people don’t frame it in that way. Conversely, we often say we value creativity in brainstorming and yet traditional group brainstorming exercises often aren’t very creative. In fact several articles I found on the internet say that individual brainstorming often results in more ideas and more creative ideas than the group process. There are several reasons for this result, group think, worrying about others’ opinions, losing track of your own ideas, spending time evaluating other’s ideas, etc. In my experience the biggest impediment to true creativity is the need to have some level of realism in the process. No matter how much we tell the group and ourselves that any possibility should be thrown out, we can’t quite do it.

In one of her books, choreographer Twyla Tharp talks about a creativity exercise she uses that illustrates an important element I think is often left out of brainstorming exercises. She says, “If you find yourself caught in a bigger rut, what you really need is a new idea, and the way to get it is by giving yourself an aggressive quota for ideas.” She finds something backstage like a stool and gives her audience or class the challenge – two minutes to come up with sixty uses for the stool. Here’s what she writes about this exercise:

“A lot of interesting things happened when you set an aggressive quota even with ideas. People’s competitive juices are stirred. Instead of panicking, they focus, and with that comes increased fluency and agility of mind.

“People are also forced to suspend critical thinking. To meet the quota, they put their internal critic on hold and let everything out. They’re no longer choking off good impulses.”

Tharp goes on to say she has found a consistent order to the quality of ideas produced this way –

“the first third of ideas are the obvious; the second third are more interesting; and the final third show flair, insight, curiosity, even complexity as later thinking builds on earlier thinking….(I’m not knocking first ideas. They’re often the best. But they’re rarely the most radical stretch and that’s the purpose of this exercise.)”

I’ve written before about the idea that boundaries actually help us be more creative (Coloring Between the Lines and Rules and Creative Leadership) and it applies in brainstorming as well. It all depends on the boundaries we set. Sometimes boundaries can cut off creativity, but well designed they can have the opposite effect. So the next time you need some creative thinking, from yourself or your group, try this exercise and see where it leads you. The fun part of it is that you never know where you’ll end up. I used this activity during a workshop and someone suggested that we could ‘eat’ the stool, but also on the list were some ideas that were both radical and possible, even useful as well as some ideas that showed “flair, insight, curiosity, even complexity” and that’s what we need in all of our organizations, isn’t it?

Take care,

Gage

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp with Mark Reiter (2003) New York: Simon and Schuster

“Respect, Ordinary Respect”

2010-05-23T14:57:00.004-05:00

The phrase that is the title of today’s blog comes from the book Invictus by John Carlin. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but I am enjoying the book. The book is a very straight-forward telling of one part of the history of South Africa and Nelson Mandela’s place in its history. It is a fascinating story. But what has caught my attention at this point, about two-thirds of the way through, is the concept captured in that phrase.

In spite of all that he experienced during the era of apartheid, Nelson Mandela was able to understand the people around him and to transcend his experiences and interact with everyone from a place of respect. He was able to understand the national experience and the experience of individuals. He was able to treat everyone, including his jailers and people who most would consider his enemies, as human beings worthy of his respect. And in giving respect he was able to earn it.

Here is a quote from the book that illustrates the point. The Sisulu referenced here is Walter Sisulu a “veteran ANC (African National Congress) organizer” who is six years older than Mandela and for many years shared a prison cell with Mandela.

“It was Sisulu, for example, who best understood how to thaw the white jailers’ hearts. The key to it all, as he would explain much later, was ‘respect, ordinary respect.’ He did not want to crush his enemies. He did not want to humiliate them. He did not want to repay them in kind. He just wanted them to treat him with no-frills, run-of-the-mill respect.

“That was precisely what the rough, undereducated white men who ruled over his prison wanted too, and that was what Mandela endeavored to give them right from the start, however hellish they made life for him.”

Time and again, the author relates the many ways Mandela showed others respect. Mandela, quite literally, spoke their language, learning Afrikaans while in prison. He appreciated character and talent and, as president, appointed staff based on those characteristics rather than racial identity. With person after person, he disarmed them by treating them with respect.

Invictus is a great story of leadership on the international scale and yet the difference made in little details - by Mandela’s ability to treat others with respect. For us, in organizational leadership, it is those little details that are important. When we take the time to understand what is important to another, we convey respect. When we really listen to what someone has to say, we convey respect. When we acknowledge another’s point of view, even if we don’t agree with it, we convey respect. And when people respect each other as human beings and act on that respect, it is possible to find common ground. And common ground is a place where leadership can take root.

If “simple, ordinary respect” can help a nation stop from tearing itself apart, what might it do for our organizations?

Take care,

Gage

Listenting as a Leadership Skill

2010-05-16T17:19:00.001-05:00

"One of the easiest human acts is also the most healing. Listening to someone. Simply listening. Not advising or coaching, but silently and fully listening." Margaret J. Wheatley

If you ask people about listening, about what is happening during a conversation, most people are ruefully honest. They admit they are often thinking about what they want to say in response. Or they acknowledge that they are really just waiting for their turn to talk. And that's in a one-on-one conversation. We all know it's even worse in a meeting or presentation especially if we have a device with us that allows us to check our e-mail or read a text or see who just called and left a message.

Listening well means we have to let go of our own agenda and just hear what the other person needs to say. Listening well takes time; it takes being willing to let the other person find their way to what they need to say. Both of these acts are difficult, but it seems to me that the most difficult part of listening for most of us is the need to be comfortable with silence. When someone needs to tell us a story that is difficult or important, it can take courage to say what needs to be said. It can be difficult to find the words. And so the listener must wait, patiently, quietly, openly and that may be the hardest task of all.

Listening well is a crucial skill for leaders. Leaders have to be able to hear what is being said and, perhaps most importantly, what is not being said. Leaders have to be willing to hear hard truths so they need to encourage others to share what is important to them individually and to the organization. For that to happen, leaders have to be able to listen openly and to refrain from becoming defensive when they don't like what they hear. When leaders can't do this, then organizational members become unwilling to take the risk of sharing their perspectives.

How are you at listening? Really listening as Wheatley describes it - listening without advising, coaching, judging, or preparing to jump in. Can you listen to someone's story without trying to fix things? Can you hear a hard truth with an open mind and heart? This week, why don't you pay attention to your listening and see what you learn? If someone comes to you with a concern this week, can you take a couple of deep breaths before you answer and see what happens? They may find they have more to say or you may find a better response. Even more basic, can you refrain from looking at your e-mail during the next meeting you attend no matter how boring the meeting may be? Even a dull meeting is a good place to practice real listening; you may find what you learn surprising.

Good luck with your listening this week - I hope some readers will be willing to share what they discovered.

Take care,

Gage

"The only person who really likes change...

2010-05-09T17:57:00.002-05:00

.. is a baby with a wet diaper." Unknown

This is one of my favorite quotes about change, because while it is true that there are a few rare individuals who embrace change, the reality is that most of us find it challenging at one level or another. My experience is that even those who say they like change have something that they prefer you not mess with and most of us prefer change we instigate rather than change that is imposed upon us. After all, it is one thing to change something I want to change. It’s another thing entirely for you to tell me what I have to do differently!

But every organization will face imposed change at some time and at some level so there are important leadership tasks involved with both leading and responding to change. Those tasks vary. There are times when leaders understand the need to change before the rest of the organization’s members. There are times when the leader is asked to implement a change whether or not she agrees. There are times when a leaders needs to listen to constituents who are resisting change, not because they are recalcitrant, but rather because they are raising important issues that need to be considered. Which means the most important leadership task is to determine the best response to the particular situation, and that of course, is always the leader’s job and is often the most difficult task of all.

Times of change call for sensitive and creative leaders, leaders who work to set aside their own concerns and focus instead on the good of the organization and its members, leaders who listen well and are not afraid to make decisions and choose a path. Times of change need leaders who are willing to make the toughest change of all – a change in themselves and their habits. This leads me to another favorite quote, this one from Gandhi, “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” As with so many thing, change begins with each one of us.

Good luck and take care,

Gage

Sometimes a 'B' Is Okay

2010-05-02T21:19:00.005-05:00

When I was in graduate school I talked to one of my professors about dropping his class because I was unprepared to take the final exam. He talked me out of it, encouraging me to take an incomplete, write a good final paper, and give it my best shot on the test. Somewhere in there he asked if I would be okay with a ‘B’.

Most students would prefer to earn an ‘A’ in class. Most of us who aspire to leadership would prefer to earn an ‘A’ in our leadership work. We want to do our very best for our organization and our followers. We want to do our best to achieve the purpose of the organization. We want to be ethical in our actions and lead effectively in every situation.

And yet, sometimes circumstances conspire against us. The semester I requested to drop my class had been a very challenging one at work and I got married during that term. In the midst of everything else toward the end of the semester, studying for my exam fell by the wayside. In the same way in our leadership life, no matter how effective our followers, how good our plans or how hard we try, sometimes it doesn’t come out the way we would prefer.

What’s a leader to do? First, like my professor reminded me, sometimes it needs to be okay to make a ‘B’. Sometimes, we have to be okay with the best we can do even if it’s not really the result we want. The question then becomes what do we do with that reality. What can we do? There is no single answer to those questions since unique circumstances will determine the options, but there are a couple of things that I think apply in most circumstances. First, there is always something to be learned. What is the best lesson in your situation? Second, a ‘B’ is not the end of the world. What is the best way to turn this into an opportunity for improvements? Third, and probably most important, we can’t all get it right every time so, don’t beat yourself up over it.

As I wrote in the essay for April 4th,"Stepped on Anyone's Toes Lately?" sometimes the list of expectations we have for leaders can be a bit much. The expectations leaders have for themselves may be even more overwhelming. As it turned out, I did make a ‘B’ on the exam, but I also wrote a good final paper and made an ‘A’ in the course, so I’m very glad I didn’t drop the class. I'm very glad I didn’t quit. Not a bad lesson to learn in graduate school or anywhere else.

Take care,

Gage

The Value of the Calendar

2010-04-18T16:54:00.001-05:00

We all have different ways of organizing our time based on our styles, our positions and our values. When we hear ourselves complaining that we don’t have time for the important things, there is a tool already available to help us sort things out – our calendar.

Whether we like to admit it or not, that visible representation of time known as our calendar is in fact a reflection of many parts of our lives such as, position, leadership style, and values. We don’t usually think of a calendar as a tool for discernment, but it shows us how we spend that very ‘valuable’ and ‘value-ful’ commodity – time which in turn is a reflection of what is important to us.

Take my calendar for example. It will show that I value knowing what is happening in my division and that I value developing relationships with staff members. Both of those take time so I meet weekly with the staff who report to me, both individually and as a group. I meet monthly with an extended staff group and I try to find creative ways to meet regularly with groups of staff in every level of position in the organization. In my role finding opportunities to interact with students is important so I say yes to nearly every request from students. I try to say yes to any invitation to lead a workshop or to give a presentation since these are ways to interact with staff and students and to transmit values to the organization.

There are other values that show up on my calendar – a hold on my lunch time so I can take a break in the middle of the day and “time for projects” on Friday afternoon. These blocks reflect an understanding of the need for changes of pace and for time to engage in reflection and planning. But at certain times of the year, this time gets squeezed out by those other values. So, I spent time over the weekend on e-mails and paperwork which is something I try to avoid – another value. But that small amount of time helped me be ready for the coming week which will be as busy as the past few have been.

We know our values are important to our leadership actions. If we listen to them and act accordingly our values help us make decisions large and small. They help us evaluate when choices have to be made. And when we begin to feel that things are out of whack, the calendar is one tool to understanding the decisions we have made and make changes as necessary.

A Different Perspective

2010-04-11T15:09:00.004-05:00

An important part of the leadership dance is the ability to change your point of view and to know when to take a break from the routine. Both help us gain a new perspective and be refreshed as we take on the challenges of our leadership role. So here is a little break from the routine - a few pictures from around our house. Enjoy, Gage

Stepped On Anyone's Toes Lately?

2010-04-04T15:58:00.007-05:00

This past week I taught a leadership workshop called The Leadership Dance. I start this workshop by dividing the participants into small groups and asking them to write down their responses to the words leader and follower. They have only one minute for each word. I’ve done this exercise many times and of course there are differences among the groups, but there are more similarities. For example, the ‘leader’ lists have mostly positive words and the ‘follower’ lists have more negative words. Similarly, the ‘leader’ lists are almost always longer than the ‘follower’ lists. I ask participants to discuss the ideas and issues that caught their attention as they listened to the various lists. There are many conclusions to be drawn and nuances to be discussed and most groups do an excellent job of identifying them.

However, there are two concepts that usually fall to me to point out. The first is the fact that there are rarely any negative words on the leader list, but there are negative kinds of leadership. In a class on leadership the paradigm seems to be ‘leader equals good’ even though we all can list examples of leaders who led their followers over a cliff or leaders/bosses who are toxic and make it miserable to be part of the organization. There is a negative side to leadership and even the most good-hearted leader has to face the reality of the harm they can cause if they aren’t careful.

The second concept is the ‘leader’ list itself. There are variations of course, but those are just details. The aggregate list is a list of positive attributes that are just a little bit short of a job description that reads “faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, …” The reality is that most leaders are human beings who can’t quite live up to the level that we tend to expect of leaders, at least not every day!would be different now.

And that’s one of the points the workshop is designed to teach - our expectations of leaders can be unreasonable. The reality is that leaders can’t dance alone. To be a great leader one needs great followers. And of course, the converse is true - it’s hard to be a great follower when you don’t have a strong leader. By the end of the workshop, that idea of leadership as a partnership has become very clear to participants. In fact one of my favorite comments from an earlier workshop was by a participant who said the list of words he would use to describe followers

On the dance floor, the leader starts with the left foot and the follower starts with the right foot. This minimizes the problem of stepping on each other's toes. In our leadership world, our words reflect our ideas and can determine our steps. If you find yourself unhappy with the leaders or the followers in your organization, maybe you should take a take a look at your ‘lists’. Do your words reflect unreasonable expectations of a leader? Are you seeing followers as subordinate? Dancing and Leading - both work best as partnerships and both take patience and attention. Stepped on any toes lately?

Forgiveness in the Leadership Dance

2010-03-28T12:00:00.005-05:00

One of the skills we talk about with new supervisors or committee chairs is the skill of delegation. It can be one of the toughest things we have to do as leaders – to acknowledge that we alone are not responsible for the success of our organizational endeavors. We truly can’t do it all. We have to depend on others. In our leadership dance, we have to let go of our partner’s hand and trust that they know the steps.

When we delegate, we are not only handing off a task, we are sharing the responsibility and we have to trust in another’s ability and their willingness to do what is needed to complete that task. When we delegate, we have to be willing to allow for different ideas about the best way to accomplish the task, we have to be willing to give the other person space to be creative, and we have to be willing to understand that mistakes may happen.

Understanding that mistakes will happen is important for leaders, but it is also necessary for every member of a group. Michael McCullough, professor of psychology at the University of Miami puts it this way, “…one of the ingredients you have to have to get individuals to cooperate with each other is a tolerance for mistakes.” I had never really thought of it this way before, but it makes sense, doesn’t it?

McCullough goes on to say, “Sometimes I’m going to let you down….And if you take each of those mistakes as the last word about my cooperative disposition, you might just give up and so no cooperation gets done. So, really our ability to cooperate with each other and make things happen that we can’t do on our own is undergirded by an ability to forgive each other for occasional defects and mistakes.”*

Therefore, as leaders not only do we need to learn to delegate, we need to pay attention to the way we respond to mistakes, and we need to foster a willingness among all members of the group to tolerate mistakes - the mistakes of others, their own mistakes and those of the leader. On the other hand, we also need to set high standards for performance and hold people accountable for poor performance. Yet another paradox in our leadership dance: We have to find ways to lead our partners to excellence while understanding that they may make missteps along the way. Accountability and forgiveness - two challenging, contradictory, and essential skills we all need for the leadership dance.

Take care,

Gage

*quote from Einstein's God: Conversations about Science and the Human Spirit, by Krista Tippett. I heard it this morning on Tippett’s NPR show ‘Speaking of Faith.’

“If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.” Tom Hanks in A League of Our Own.*

2010-03-21T17:26:00.004-05:00

I’ve always liked the movie . It’s a wonderful story about many things – leadership, reaching for a dream, making a difference, the list goes on – and the quote above is one of my favorites (along with "There’s no crying in baseball.”) Both quotes attest to the challenges the women faced while participating in the All-American Girl’s Professional Baseball League during World War II. I was reminded of this quote today as I thought about the various writers who when talking about the life of a writer say they much prefer having written to the actual work of writing. But the concept applies to many aspects of our lives, doesn’t it?

I think most people know leadership can be hard work. Does that mean we shouldn’t be leaders? I think some people are surprised to find out that creative work can be difficult – it’s not just talent that makes a great writer, painter, artist or creative leader. Does that mean we shouldn’t try to be creative in our life – at work and elsewhere? Of course it doesn’t. I think that we often deny ourselves opportunities because we don’t think we can do it, we don’t think we have the time or we don’t want to put forth the extra effort. The psychiatrist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, has studied the concept of optimal experience, more familiarly known as flow. He has found that if the skills required by an activity are too simple for our abilities we become bored. There is much more to the idea, but for today’s essay this one part of his work is enough – it is the challenge that makes the act worth doing. It is why the answer to the question ‘why climb Mt. Everest?’ really is not ‘because it was there.’ The answer really is ‘because it was a challenge.’

So the next time someone asks you to try something that is a challenge, or the next time you find yourself saying, ‘but that will take too long,’ or ‘I don’t know how to do it', or any other version of ‘it’s going to be difficult,’ stop yourself and remember that "there is no crying in baseball" and give it a try. And when you succeed, then you can help remind the rest of us that "it’s the hard that makes it great."

Take care,

Gage

*I do know that movie titles are italicized, but I can't make the title italicize....

The Rhythms of Life and Leadership

2010-03-14T17:16:00.002-05:00

Some weeks are more difficult than others. That’s just a fact of life. It’s a fact of our leadership life as well. Sometimes problems and issues seem to pile up without an end in sight. Luckily, there are also weeks during which it feels as if everything is going our way and will keep doing so through the future.

The true fact of life, however, is captured in this story of a king asking his chief philosopher to find him a sentence that is true in every circumstance. After much research and thought, the philosopher brought the king this one sentence – “This, too, shall pass.”

Those endless weeks of problems will eventually pass. So too will the good times. The important question for leaders and for all of us in our lives thus becomes, “what will you do in the mean time?” In other words, ‘how do you handle right now?”

This week has been an example of topsy-turvey reality. The beginning of the week was a great trip to an interesting city to attend a professional conference that was fun both personally and professionally. Then I came home to the hard reality that it was time for our 13-year-old Golden Retriever, Millie, to leave us.

In my leadership life there are still tasks to be done and commitments to be kept. And yet, in my daily life, I also need to take time to grieve and to miss Millie. It’s a time to practice leadership tasks that often get overlooked – asking for help and taking care of oneself. Some things can wait and friends and colleagues can handle others if only I’m willing to ask. The time for grieving will pass and later, I’ll be in a position to understand and to help someone else.

Leadership and life both require an understanding of the rhythms of work and fun, of the cycles of good times and difficult ones, and the reality that each day will bring something new. Learning to be in sync with these realities, these rhythms is both the dance of leadership and the dance of life.

Take care,

Gage

Leaders’ Two To-Do Lists

2010-03-07T14:36:00.003-06:00

I believe, and I talk about it when I present or write about leadership, that all of us have the potential to be leaders. I also believe that healthy organizations need leaders at every level and in every job. But it is also true that some positions have ‘leader’ attached to them – positions like ‘president’, ‘vice-president’, and ‘director’ just to name a few. Positions with these titles and more like them require leadership.

Every job has ‘tasks’, those things on the ‘to do’ list. Some jobs have very clearly defined tasks, some tasks are not as clear-cut, but all jobs have tasks specific to the job. However, when you take on a position that has ‘leader’ attached to the title, it is important to understand the different expectations that then come along with the position. It’s similar to the situation that can occur when someone who is a great technician is promoted to supervisor and finds out that a supervisory job requires different skills. There are tasks to be done and there is supervision.

In a leadership position it is important to be excellent at the tasks of the job, but that is not enough. And while it’s a much different list than a task list, there is a list of sorts for leaders. Here are just a few items from that list:

Understand the strategic mission of the larger organization, know how your department fits into that mission and help the members of your department understand.

Engage in work that is beyond the scope of your specific department – it helps you learn more about your organization and it is a way to develop relationships with others that will support your work and that of the larger organization.

Support the work of staff to help them engage in the larger work of the organization and to have the opportunity to develop leadership skills.

Those are just a few of the tasks on the list of those who take on positions that have leader attached to them. There are many more and it’s important to understand that so you have some idea of what you are taking on when you say yes to the opportunity. It’s also important to know that this list applies whether the leadership position is your job or a volunteer position.

Two to-do lists for leaders. What’s on your to-do lists? Are you paying as much attention to the leader’s list as you are to the task list? Shouldn’t you be?

Take care,

Gage

Feeling Our Way to Thoughtful Decisions

2010-02-28T14:48:00.004-06:00

Think-Decide-Feel. Or is Feel-Decide-Think better? Maybe Decide-Think-Feel is the best?

Actually, anyone of the six combinations formed by reordering these three words will work just fine. Think-Decide-Feel is the name of a workshop I attended many years ago which focused on the way people process information. My pattern is Think-Feel-Decide which means I like to think about the decision, then feel – try it out for size so to speak, and then only after having done that do I want to decide. The advantage is that my decisions are pretty solid; the disadvantage to this style is that decisions can take a while and then it can be hard to change my mind. My friend Glenn made decisions differently. He liked to pick a solution, then collect the data and if he needed to he’d pick another option and test it out. Don’t make the mistake of thinking Glenn was wishy-washy – far from it. His decision making style was just different from mine.

One day Glenn and I met together to try to sort out a difficult university disciplinary situation. The conversation was going nowhere and we were both frustrated. Finally, Glenn looked at me and said, ‘I know why this isn’t working. I haven’t made a decision yet. Okay, let’s suspend them.’ Luckily for both of us, I understood what he meant and knew that he wasn’t trying to derail our discussion. We talked about all of the issues surrounding a decision of suspension, agreed that wasn’t the best answer, and moved on to something else that we both agreed was a better solution. Our supervisor, who had a different style from both Glenn and I, let us work our way through it. She didn’t try to short cut the discussion we had to have and she trusted that we would work our way through our differences. Her leadership supported and valued the different perspectives we brought to our jobs to the benefit of everyone.

To lead creatively and to lead for creativity, we need to understand and value the many ways that we differ and to create an atmosphere that not only makes room for such differences, but truly values them. Each of us brings our own perspective, talent and skill into the mix. We also bring our decision-making style and our thought processes along with us. And as challenging as that can be, it’s essential to good work and creativity.

So whether you Feel-Think-Decide or Think-Decide-Feel, it’s important to understand your own thought process and style and respect those of others no matter what your role in the organization. And as a leader, it’s important to go even further to value those differences and make room for them in the organization.

So how do you feel this? Or what do you think about it? Or can you decide?

Take care,

Gage

Going for the Gold!

2010-02-23T14:07:00.007-06:00

On Saturday night I watched the men’s basketball team beat an unbeaten, conference leading team in a hard fought Homecoming game. I don’t know about the players but those of us in the stands were exhausted – it’s hard work screaming and yelling! Of course the players were tired, but they played full out until the very end. As I watched them I thought about a different game a few years ago. At that time, many players were injured and there was little or no time for the players to catch their breath. They played hard that night as well, but they lost anyway during a very tough season. Watching them that night, I realized again one of the hard realities of life – it doesn’t matter how hard you work, how well you prepare, or how determined you are, sometimes you don’t win the game.

We see it over and over in the Olympics. The American ice dance team skated the performance of a lifetime. They would probably have won the gold medal any night but Monday because the Canadian team skated to perfection. I’ve been following Canadian ski-cross racer Chris Del Bosco because I know his sister, a former student from SMU. Sunday, he wasn’t satisfied with bronze and took a risk, didn’t make the jump well and with a hard crash ended up in fourth place – no medal for Chris.

It’s true for all of us, not just athletes. Sometimes our proposal doesn’t get funded, no matter how well prepared. Sometimes we don’t get the promotion, no matter how well our interview went. The reality is that no matter how hard we prepare, how stellar our performance, we can’t control the outcome. We may have done all the best practice in the world, be having a great season, and then compete against a team that has its best night ever, or skate against a pair that turns in their top performance. We submit a great proposal for new funding on the day budget cuts are announced or we have the best interview we’ve ever had and the other candidate has a great interview too – and ten more years of experience. The outcome is not in our control.

Like I told that group of students struggling through a difficult basketball season, there’s only one thing we can control in this equation – ourselves. I can choose to turn in my best work every time or to cut corners. Sometimes I’ll be the only one who knows the difference, but I will know. I can choose to try to reach for the top or I can settle for something less, it’s completely up to me. But there is only one way to have a shot at the gold medal or the conference championship or the promotion and that’s to do your best work, every day, every week, all year long.

The result may not be up to you, but you can choose whether or not you bring a championship attitude to every thing you do. So, are you going to go for the gold?

Take care,

Gage

Happy Valentine's Day

2010-02-14T10:54:00.008-06:00

It seems like Valentine’s Day is a good day to write about Kouzes and Posner’s concept of Encouraging the Heart. In their books The Leadership Challenge and Encouraging the Heart, these two authors and researchers on the topic of leadership write about the importance of recognition as a leadership skill. This is not a touchy-feely sort of recognition – the first essential component is ‘Set Clear Standards’ – rather it is an acknowledgement of that fact that leadership is first and foremost a people skill.

When I talk about leadership I often say that leadership starts with a simple mathematical reality; if I walk out the door and no one follows me, I’m not much of a leader. There has to be at least two of us for leadership to exist. This makes the follower a critical component of leadership. Once you have two people involved then leadership is no longer about technical skills, but it's all about interpersonal relationships and people skills. At the end I’ve included a citation for the website I found that is a pdf of Kouzes and Posner’s chapter on “150 Ways to Encourage the Heart." Here are some of my favorite examples from their list:

"...20. Practice smiling. This is not a joke. Smiling and laughing release naturally occurring chemicals in our bodies that fight off depression and uplift our moods. Try it. ...

22. The next time you talk to one of your constituents about a difficulty she's having with a project, make sure that sometime during the conversation you say, "I know you can do it," or words to that effect. And you better mean it. ...

28. Walk around your facility and examine the images that are on the walls. Are they images that communicate positive messages or negative ones? Analyze your company's annual report, your own and your executive's speeches, the company newsletter, and other forms of corporate communication. Are the messages positive or negative? Do whatever you can to change the images to positive ones.... When images are positive, cultures and organizations are in ascendance. ...

36. Leave your desk for fifteen minutes every day, solely for the purpose of learning more about each of your key constituents. Who are they? What are their needs and aspirations? What do they need to find greater joy in their work? How do they like to be rewarded? ...

37. When you're out there caring by wandering around (CBWA), take along a pocket notebook to record the things people are doing right and the right things people are doing. Make sure to record not only the names but also the details about setting, people involved, how the act is special, and how it fits with the standards you're trying to reinforce. Use this later when telling your recognition stories. ...

40. Don't wait for a ceremony as a reason to recognize someone. If you notice something that deserves immediate recognition, go up and say something like, "I was just noticing how you handled that customer complaint. The way you listened actively and responded was a real model of what we're looking for. What you've done is an example to everyone. Thank you." If you happen to be carrying around a few extra coupons for a free drink at the local coffee or juice shop, here's an opportunity to give one out. ...

43. Wander around your workplace for the express purpose of finding someone in the act of doing something that exemplifies your organization's standards. Give that person recognition on the spot...."

As I picked these few out, I realize I’m not practicing what I’m preaching. My calendar has gotten very full lately and I’m sitting in my office or a conference room for meeting after meeting. It’s hard to do even a few of these let alone all 150. So pick one or two and make an effort to live them for a while. Then add another and when it is ingrained, add one more. The reality is that when you act this way, you will enjoy your leadership life more and so will the people in your organization.

Paying attention to the heart every day – it’s not just for Valentine’s Day anymore.

Happy Valentine’s Day,

Gage

Kouzes and Posner website: http://media.wiley.com/product_data/excerpt/40/07879418/0787941840-1.pdf

Barbara Glanz’s books are also great sources for ideas. I’ve used ideas from CARE Packages for the Workplace – here’s her website http://www.barbaraglanz.com/

What are your favorite ways to encourage the heart or do you have a great story about the way someone recognized you?

To react or not to react…

2010-02-07T12:25:00.002-06:00

This week I had a conversation with two colleagues on the question of leaders as actors or rather as reactors. The question was ‘how, as a leader, do you know when to step in and when to stay out?’ It’s an important question and one to which, of course, there is no simple answer or prescription.

A huge part of effective leadership is self-awareness and I think that self-awareness is critical to being able to answer this question. If you are attending an event being run by staff in your department and you have not been part of the planning, but you see that some details are clearly awry, what is your first response? To step in? If so, at what level? Do you want to tell people how to fix it, do you fix it yourself, or do you ask for the person in charge? Maybe you hang back and wait to see how it is handled? Any of these responses or many others could be appropriate depending on the circumstances. I’m not suggesting that you need to evaluate and pick the ‘right’ one, but rather that you ask yourself about your inclination – to act or to hold back. It’s important to understand for ourselves what our natural tendencies are. Then we can pay attention to the situation at hand and do a bit of analysis asking whether our natural reaction tends to be more or less helpful to the situation.

Unfortunately, there is really only one way to develop the skill of matching my reaction to the situation and that’s trial and error with analysis. The next time you find yourself in a situation where you have a responsibility and a choice about reacting, pay attention to your first response and then do some analysis. Unless we’re talking about a true emergency, say a fire, there is usually time for a deep breath and a moment of thought. How big a deal is the problem – really? Is it really critical or just your pet peeve? Then comes the important question – which response will be most effective in helping staff members learn and develop in their jobs and as leaders? So often the answer to that question is ‘no reaction’ or the ‘least possible reaction.’ Additionally, the opportunities for learning must be balanced against the harm to the program or people being served. And, of course, sometimes we pick the right response and sometimes we don’t, so analysis after the fact is important as well.

To react or not to react: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of imperfect programs and services
Or to jump in and solve the sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them – or cause many more? …
To try; to err; perchance to succeed, ay, there’s the rub;
For in that attempt we learn and grow
or rob others of their chance, and so,
Must give us pause, to analyze, to think, and to try again.

With apologies to William Shakespeare and Hamlet,

Gage

The definition of a saint.

2010-01-31T14:32:00.005-06:00

Today, I've struggled with getting to the desk to write. It’s a cold, gloomy day and I’d rather pull a novel down from the shelf, curl up under a blanket, and read the day away. But, I tell myself, you’ve made a commitment. You started this blog knowing that you’d need to write regularly. And so the internal discussion begins, the kind that makes you feel like there are multiple people in your head.
- You’ve made a commitment. (Connie Conscience)
- Commitment to whom? I didn’t promise anyone I’d write every Sunday. (Lazy Lucy)
- There’s an implied commitment with the people who read this. (Lawyer Lorna)
- They’ll never notice. No one reads it anyway. (Whiney Winifred)
- Not true, but even if it were, you made a commitment! (Reasonable Rhonda)
And so I sat down to write thinking about this idea of an implied commitment.

Recently, I saw part of a show on PBS of a Harvard professor lecturing to a full classroom on ethics and justice. Part of the discussion included students defending the position that a car company did not need to fix the defect in one of its models until it reached a certain threshold even though people were dying because of the defect. What is a company’s implied commitment to its consumers and when does the obligation to honor it kick in? Is it when the publicity is too bad? Or is there some ratio regarding death and profit? What about responsibility to the shareholders? Or should management respond as soon as they know of the problem?

I suspect most of us believe the latter – if you know of a problem you have a responsibility to do something. Does that responsibility change depending on whether or not there is danger to life and limb? Many of us, many of our organizations don’t do work that rises to that level, so does the answer change? If there is no danger and I feel lazy I can ignore my commitments – great, I don’t have to do my blog today!

But then I remembered a definition of integrity – doing what is right when no one is watching. Seems to me a corollary is doing what you say you will do even when no one will know the difference. It takes each one of us honoring our commitments, both explicit and implied, to make sure our organizations honor their commitments.

Author and motivational speaker Barbara Glanz says the definition of a saint is someone who always does what she says she will do. Think about that for a moment and you’ll realize what a very high standard that really is. How are you doing with your commitments?

I’m no saint. But today I have honored my commitment and here is my blog. Have a great day,

Gage

Rules and Creative Leadership

2010-01-24T12:12:00.004-06:00

I don’t believe that ‘rules are made to be broken.’ However I do agree with Emerson that “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.” (Notice the important word foolish; it often is left out.) Organizations, large and small, need rules to operate effectively. However, we all know of situations in which someone’s insistence on following a rule rigidly stops us from doing something that needs to be done and that benefits the organization, the staff, and the purpose of the organization. Also situations change and almost always faster than rules do. So what’s a leader to do to help staff members follow the rules and yet not practice that ‘foolish’ consistency?

It seems to me there are two elements necessary for anyone to find that balance – clarity and creativity. It’s important to understand the underlying principle for the existence of the rules in the first place. That clarity will help us make better decisions as we try to apply the rule. For example, some outside organizations want to use university facilities for events. However, state universities have a number of rules for different circumstances that all have the same underlying principle - state property can’t be used for personal gain. When you understand the principle, all of the arcane rules about external groups using campus facilities make a little more sense and can be applied more reasonably. It’s also important to be clear about the purpose of the situation to which we are applying the rule. We might have one idea about the purpose and the person we’re working with might have another idea which can lead to confusion as we try to apply the rules.

Once we have clarity of principle for the rules and purpose for the situation, then creativity comes into play. The rules might prohibit us from having this event on campus as it is currently designed, but perhaps if we found a way to redesign the event, it would fit within the rules. The clarity of principle and purpose allows us ways to find solutions to these kinds of problems.

The leader’s tasks then become making sure organization members understand the underlying principles and creating an environment which supports creativity in applying the rules to varied situations. The environment also needs to be comfortable for individuals to make suggestions about redefining rules to meet those changing circumstances.

Working creatively within the rules really is possible for all of us when we are clear about the principles behind the rules and the purposes for the activities we want to do. Helping organizational members find this clarity and be creative is a critical leadership task. So, where have you creatively (and legitimately) found a way to do something when the rules were working against you?

All the best,

Gage

"One hundred percent of the shots you don't take, don't go in." Wayne Gretzky

2010-01-17T17:03:00.004-06:00

As I write this, I’m listening to a CD by Susan Boyle. In case you don’t remember, she is the woman who became a YouTube sensation after she blew everyone away on Britain’s Got Talent. It’s a fitting CD to listen to now since I had the idea today to write on the subject of risk-taking.

What is risky varies for each of us – I can speak in front of a large audience with no qualms. I can perform a ballroom dance in front of friends or strangers without hesitation. Sing a solo anywhere outside of the car, no way! As I listen to this soaring voice through the speakers, I think of Ms. Boyle standing in front of an audience prepared to laugh at her because of her looks. I don’t know if she saw it as a risk or not when she stepped out on that stage, and some might say she had little to lose, but at the very least she was risking her dream. When you think about it that is not a little risk at all!

Where are you in your ability to take risks, large or small? Both creativity and leadership are risky ventures. Both require us to imagine a different reality for ourselves, our department, or our organization and then to step out onto one kind of stage or another and try to make change happen. Once we try to make a change, we have risked failure. We have also risked success which sometimes is even scarier! To be a creative leader – one who can envision another way and help move the change forward – we have to take risks.

To undertake this leadership task, it helps to have a clear understanding of our willingness to risk, our tolerance for the messiness and conflict of any change effort, and our ability to help others. We also need to have an appreciation for those factors as experienced by others who will be impacted. Perhaps most important, we need to have an ability to stick it out through the entire process until we truly know whether or not we have succeeded. Change takes time and we need to be committed to a longer time frame than we might be used to. Just think about your New Year’s resolutions if you aren’t sure what I mean! (FYI, I Googled “change efforts” and the first listing was entitled “Leading Change: Why transformation efforts fail”. http://www.power-projects.com/LeadingChange.pdf)

Susan Boyle risked her dream and now has a number one CD to her credit and it has sold over three million copies. What dream or idea do you have? What change can you envision for yourself or your organization? What’s stopping you from giving it a try? Is your assessment of the risk accurate? Find a trusted friend or colleague and talk with them about it. For most of us the risk is not as big as we might imagine. I had the idea to do a blog for quite a while, but I wouldn’t start. I told myself it would take too much time, but it was really more about the risk of looking foolish. What if no one reads it? Well, I finally figured out no one could read it if I didn’t write it and so I started. Some people are reading, a few are kind enough to tell me they enjoy it and get something useful. And now I have a few followers who are people I don’t even know! (Welcome to each of you!) And all I had to do was step out onto this stage and see what happened. Turns out to be quite fun and not scary at all.

So - what risks are you avoiding? Maybe there’s a small one you can try and see what good things might happen. And then why not use the comment section to share your story, so we can all share your good news.

Good luck,

Gage

Balancing Act - Part Two

2010-01-10T12:16:00.001-06:00

During a presentation on work-life balance, a colleague explained to us that ‘Balance is in the eye of the liver, not the beholder.’ Once we got over the oddly anatomical sound of that statement, and understood she meant the person not the organ, we realized she had something important to tell us.

It’s not for us to look at others and judge whether they are balanced or not. How can we know that? Conversely, we’re the only ones who truly know if our life is working on an even keel. However, sometimes we get so caught up in one aspect of life or another that we don’t notice for ourselves when we are not doing so well on the balance beam. Or, sometimes we feel vaguely unhappy about things, but we really can’t say why.

I think there are some specific reasons for all of this. First, like I wrote last week, we can set ourselves up for failure when we misunderstand balance, thinking it is one specific way of being and not letting ourselves flow with the changes of life. Second, sometimes we aren’t clear about what is important to us, so our decisions take us all over the place. As a result we end up saying ‘yes’ to too many opportunities or to the wrong ones and all of the sudden we find ourselves spending our time on things that aren’t really important to us, though they may look great to others.

Maybe we bought a big house and now find ourselves spending all our time cleaning it and all our money on mortgage and upkeep. If we love everything about home ownership, that will be fine. But what if we don’t? Or you might think that volunteering for a board of a non-profit looks like a good way to give back to the community and find out it’s not at all what you thought and it be comes a burden, just one more thing on the to-do list.

Clarity about our wants and our needs is a first step toward finding true balance. Then you can say ‘no’ to the opportunities that may sound worthwhile but are not where you need to spend your time and energy. That allows you to give your full energy and attention when you say ‘yes’.

And of course, there are always things we need to do that aren’t our favorite – the house has to be cleaned some time, at work things have to be filed or whatever routine tasks come with the job. But, when we are clear about what is important to the job and to ourselves, we make better decisions about the use of our time. We make decisions that help us get the routine done routinely, say ‘no’ appropriately, and, as a result, have time and energy for the things we really love. Now that’s a balanced life in the heart of the liver, not just the eye.

Take care,

Gage

Balancing Act

2010-01-03T13:30:00.003-06:00

Balance – it’s an interesting concept and one that we use in a wide variety of ways. As I write this, there’s a cat balanced on my shoulder because she wants to be out and about with us, but she doesn’t wants to play with the dogs. So, I’m trying to balance my need to get this done with her need for companionship in a way that makes her feel safe and secure – hence the sitting on my shoulder.

Bear-Bear, the cat, is 15 years old. For most of her life she was mothered by a large golden retriever, but later she was shaken by a dog and since then she has become more fearful. Some of our five dogs don’t even know she’s out, but a couple of them, one in particular, find her fascinating and their style of play doesn’t work well for this old cat. So we spend our lives trying to meet our responsibilities to them by finding a balance for their respective, mostly incompatible, needs.

Balancing incompatible needs and meeting differing responsibilities – we hear a lot about that these days. It seems to be an unreachable goal and just adds to our feeling that we can’t quite manage it all, because we haven’t found Balance – with that capital B! But in my yoga practice, I’ve learned something important about the concept of balance. To illustrate it, I’ll ask you to take off your shoes and ‘balance’ on one foot. Try to stand there for a while – if you have to rest your hand on something or put your foot down, do, no one is watching. Now pay attention to your standing foot. You’ll begin to notice that your foot isn’t still, the muscles are making constant tiny adjustments, and you can feel yourself shifting slightly to be able to stand on that one foot. Add a heavy wind or minor earthquake and you’d start to feel your entire body adjusting. Balance isn’t static. Balance isn’t a goal I achieve and then I have it forever. Balance is a process. Even when we use it that way calling something a ‘balancing act’ we still think of it as something to achieve not something that is on-going. But keeping our balance is an on-going process.

This week as the holiday season draws to a close and we start the New Year, especially if you have a list of resolutions, perhaps it’s a good time to give ourselves a break and not try to find THE perfect balance point among all the demands in our lives. Remember that standing up takes all sorts of muscles let alone balancing on one foot. So maybe we can be okay with finding a sort of balance today and we’ll work on tomorrow’s balance tomorrow, if we even need to. Maybe we can even be okay with reaching a hand out for help or putting our foot down.

Have fun!

Gage

A New Year's Challenge

2009-12-27T17:00:00.008-06:00

Are you thinking about a resolution for New Year’s? Many of us say we don’t, but we still think of the new year as a chance to change things, to get things right, or do things differently. We say we don’t do resolutions because we never keep them. Usually, of course, the problem is that we have too many resolutions because we’re going to ‘fix’ everything this year.

But I have a suggestion for you as a way to support any changes you do want to make this year. It’s something from Julia Cameron’s books and it’s a simple tool though it does take a commitment. The tool is called ‘Morning Pages’. All you need is a spiral notebook or blank filler paper and a pen. Each ‘morning’ you sit down and write out long hand (no computer) until you fill three pages. Fill three pages with what you ask? It doesn’t matter. Just write. About anything, anything at all. It’s whatever is on your mind. Keep your pen moving until you’ve filled through pages.

For some of you the idea of writing like this will make you a little crazy. For folks like me the idea of getting up a half hour early to fit this in will be the stumbling point. But I’ve been doing this for seven or eight years. I haven’t been constant. There have been long stretches of time when I didn’t want to mess with it. But I keep coming back to writing my morning pages. Here are some of the benefits for me when I do Morning Pages faithfully.

A better start to each day.
I feel more grounded.
I accomplish more over time.
I find answers to questions and solutions to problems.
I’m more creative.
I do my job better.
I live my priorities better.
I live my values more clearly.

It isn’t really magic, but there are times when it feels as if it were magical. I know that I miss doing the pages when I don’t do them for some reason. I know the ups and downs of life are easier to manage when I am doing them. And I know that I am braver in both my leadership and my creativity when I do my morning pages regularly. If you are looking for a way to keep yourself going on your resolutions or if you want a way to be a bit more creative or any other change you want to make, I have no doubt this tool will help you.

If you are interested in learning more, here’s a site http://paperartstudio.tripod.com/artistsway/id3.html that will help explain it. This is one of those things that you have to try in order to understand, that you have to commit to for a while before you experience the changes. But after all that’s true of any change we want to make isn’t it. It doesn’t cost much, it doesn’t hurt, and you don’t have to give up much (just a little sleep) to start. Already that makes it better than most New Year’s resolutions, doesn’t it? Good luck if you decide to give it a try and either way I hope you have a very Happy New Year!

Gage

Planning vs. Creativity

2009-12-20T14:11:00.005-06:00

For years I was a planner; planning is my natural tendency, but my work also required orderly thinking and the ability to manage and design processes. It was important for me to know that I was going to end at point X and to know all of the steps along the way. Then I began to read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. As I read this book and others I began to broaden my definition of creativity and to understand how the need to plan every detail got in the way of my creativity on two levels.

A breakthrough came when I had the notion for the Creative Leadership Workshop. I had this cool idea for a 12 week workshop for students modeled on The Artist’s Way, but with a different purpose. I wanted to find a way to combine what I was learning about creativity with leadership. It was early August and classes started in just a couple of weeks, so I could work on it during the fall semester and offer the sessions in the spring.

And that’s when I had the truly radical idea that instead of waiting I could do it now! Of course, the planner part of me kicked in with all the reasons that it wouldn’t work to do it this semester, but for once I ignored them. I sketched out the basic ideas and went back to the office ready to try it. So I invited a group of students to participate and 20 of them were brave or crazy enough to give it try. When we started, I had an outline of what we would do though I had no idea which things would work and which were too crazy. The workshop turned out to be an incredible experience and the list of things we all learned is much too long to share here, but part of the reason it worked so well was because there was room for new ideas as we went along. It’s also true that my idea of success was much too limited for what really happened.

So that was the first level of learning – it’s possible for things to work without a plan. Having the outline but not the plan allowed for more learning than I could have imagined.

The second level came when I offered the workshop again. I’ve offered the full workshop three other times, once for staff and twice more for students. The staff group was a great event, but the second and third sessions of the student version were never as amazing as the first. I think it was because I now had a lesson plan; I was reaching for a specific result now. I had told the first group that we were making it up together and that they were part of the creative process so they approached it in that way. It was a truly participative experience. Not having a complete plan allowed others the freedom to be creative too.

Creativity – it takes an odd mix of planning, freedom, openness to other’s ideas and to the possibilities of the moment. So what event might you chose not to plan?

Making Time

2009-12-13T16:26:00.002-06:00

This weekend I’ve already made a double batch of chocolate chip cookies and the plan for today includes a double batch of thumbprint cookies – the kind you put jam in. If you know anything about my domestic inclinations (they are few in number), you know that cookie making signals the end of the fall semester. It’s the one time of the year that I find time to bake.

‘Find time to bake.’ It’s such an interesting phrase isn’t it? Equally intriguing is its cousin ‘to make time.’ We hear people wishing for more than 24 hours in the day or saying they don’t have enough time to accomplish everything on their list let alone add something. We also know people who seem to have more time than others, at least based on what they accomplish, and we wonder if they ever sleep.

One of the realities about time that I’ve learned over the years is that we find time for the things that are important to us. But that only works when we are clear about our values, and yes, when we exercise a little self discipline. I have a busy schedule and a long commute and yet you’ll see a dance lesson on my weekly schedule and frequently time out dancing with friends. Dancing is important to me. Reading is important which is why you might find me reading while I blow dry my hair in the morning. My work consumes many hours and time with my husband is important so I try to be sure we find time to do things together even if it’s running errands.

What’s important to you? Do you make sure it fits into your week? Spend a little of that precious time reviewing the way you spend your time and be honest with yourself. When you look at the list, do you say ‘yes, my actions match my values’ or do you realize instead that what you say is important doesn’t match where you spend your time?

Now, what do you want to do about it? What are you willing to change? Where are you willing to ‘make’ time which really means where are you willing to change how you use your time. If you say you don’t have time for exercise, maybe spending less time on Facebook will ‘make’ time for exercise. Spending more time with family could create opportunities for exercise if you spend that time on a bicycle or a walk. At work, you may find that the way you are answering e-mail gets in the way of reading new information on-line. It is different for each of us and does indeed take creativity to make it all work.
Take a little time to make a little time next time you hear yourself saying you can’t find time. While you may not find all the time in the world, you may find you have time enough to do just what is important to you.

Keep making time,

Gage

Easy Does It

2009-12-06T18:19:00.005-06:00

Nearly four years ago, I had an idea for a book. I loved this idea – it brought together many things I enjoy and am interested in. As an added bonus, it let me talk with my colleagues all over the country and learn from them. It’s a good idea for a good book, if I do say so myself. I invited 50 people to talk with me and 30 of them said yes. So, in the summer of 2006, I interviewed them and during the summer and fall I transcribed the interviews. I was on a roll. Then in December, I accepted a new position. We moved in January and I started the new job in February. And the work on the book slowed down – imagine that.

But I keep coming back to it. I still love the idea. I have a complete draft now and this fall, I’ve been brave enough to let some people read it. They tell me two important things I need to know, both of which I know in my heart of hearts but need to hear from someone else: ‘It’s good. Keep going.’ and ‘It needs work. Keep going.’

I find the editing and rewriting part of writing part of a book to be the hardest part. It feels overwhelming. I’m very lucky that the people who have read it have given me concrete suggestions both large and small. The task for this weekend was to get started on ‘fixing the book’ and it’s now 5:00 p. m. on Sunday and somehow, I’ve been busy all weekend!

Finally, I remembered what I know, something I’ve learned from many talented people – pick one task and do it. I wrote about this last week as a way to cope with a limitless list. This practice is at least as important as a way to make progress on a creative project. In the same way a list that’s too long can be managed by focusing on one task, a project that is too big can be started by picking one little part to work on.

I can’t find the citation, but I’m certain it’s Julia Cameron who wrote that we misunderstand the phrase ‘Easy does it.’ We use it to mean take it easy. But when read literally, it means that easy gets it done. We don’t have to cart the entire wheelbarrow full of our project all the way up the hill in one trip; undertaking a few little pieces of the project at a time will work just as well.

I don’t have to rewrite an entire book this weekend, I just have to find one piece and take care of it. Easy does it. Easy will get it done. What great idea are you ignoring because you don’t have time to get it done today? Where might you make some progress if you gave your self permission to take it easy?

Take care,

Gage

Lists, lists, lists.

2009-11-29T17:37:00.001-06:00

So, what’s on your list? I know you have one. We all do. Some of us are list-makers; we like everything written down so we don’t forget something. Even more we like the feeling of accomplishment when we check something off or draw a line through it. (There are even a few of us who upon completing a task that wasn’t on the list will add it after the fact just for the pleasure of marking it done!)

Ok, you’re not that crazy. In fact, you don’t like to write down a list, too stressful to see it all in one place or maybe too confining. But admit it, even if you aren’t a list-maker, you have a list. It may be things you’d like to do sometime in this lifetime. It might be your New Year’s resolutions. It might be a ‘should’ list of things you ought to do someday like clean out the garage. It doesn’t matter what form it takes, we all have lists of some sort or another even if we call it our kid’s social calendar. From mid-November through the start of the year, those lists can be particularly full and crazy-making.

My original ideas was to write something about planning as a leadership skill, as a way to make things a little less hectic. It’s true that planning can help, but the reality is that no matter how well we plan, some days it doesn’t help. Whether it’s someone else’s poor planning, a traffic snarl, or the slow cashier, there are things outside our control, beyond the reach of our wonderful plans and it can all go awry.

Therefore, instead of talking about planning, here’s a reminder from Leadership Yoga – it’s not so much what we do as how we do it. I had a list for today and I’m off schedule. I could choose to rush through things feeling frazzled – that’s the way to a cut finger while slicing vegetables. Or I could choose to chop vegetables with my full attention, carefully, easily, enjoying the smells and colors and textures. Full disclosure here, after chopping two onions had me in tears, I asked my husband for help – also an important lesson in getting things done. After the onions, he kept on with the celery while I peeled carrots and it turned in to the fun of cooking together. If I’d been feeling harried and sorry for myself I would have missed out on that moment.

So, the next time your list is overwhelming, or you’re feeling frazzled, quit worrying about getting it all done and start paying attention to how you’re doing the one task in front of you. Take a deep yoga breath and let it out fully and see what there is to enjoy in the task, even if it’s just that when you’re done you can cross it off the list.

Enjoy!

Gage

Storytelling

2009-11-22T15:57:00.009-06:00

Recently, instead of asking a large group to help develop a theme for our division’s first annual report publication, we asked participants to tell a story. Actually, we asked for a fable, complete with moral. What we got was amazing – creativity, heart-felt stories, even a few fears and worries showed up. What didn’t show up were technical definitions or laundry lists of tasks, duties and activities. Staff members used a variety of ways to tell the story; there were different levels of detail, but it was very easy to understand what people cared about.

Reading the blog of the Center for Courage and Renewal, my attention was caught by Parker Palmer’s response to a commenter. Palmer wrote that people who start on the opposite sides of difficult issues like abortion can find common ground. They do so not by explaining all the rational reasons for their position, no technical reasons, nor laundry lists of higher authority. They find common ground by telling the story of the experiences that led them to their position.

But how do we create places for people to be able to tell their stories and for people to be able to hear others’ stories? In my comment to the Courage and Renewal blog, I wrote that I thought one problem with our public discourse these days is that the town hall meeting model is based on a traditional form of leadership and power – a few leaders, everyone else follows. Perhaps early on the town hall meeting was a form of community leadership, but now that are communities are so much larger and diverse, it seems very different. Now, a group of ‘officials’ are seated up front, usually on a raised platform and their role is either to talk to or listen to everyone else. In recent years this model has become more talking or even yelling at rather than talking to each other. The idea of talking with each other doesn’t seem to be in the equation at all.

There are many models of inclusive conversation to be found these days and most, if not all, involve being seated in a circle. The way you know you have managed to create a circle is that every person there can see the face of every other person. Immediately you have a different relationship among participants than when everyone is seated in the lecture format. (Even the name of the chair set up sets the tone, doesn’t it?)

I wonder what would happen in a town hall meeting if the leaders came down off the platform and sat in a circle with participants. It’s not easy for the person who has the role and responsibility of leadership to step out from behind the desk or to come down off the dais, but it’s important. It’s not easy to listen to the story of someone’s pain as they tell you what went wrong in their interaction with your office or organization or with you, but it’s an essential part of being an effective leader. I wonder what kind of conversations we would have if we asked people to tell their stories instead of just asserting or defending their positions. I wonder what might happen in a staff meeting about a difficult subject if we asked people to tell their stories. I know we would have different conversations and sometimes that in and of itself can be enough.

Where in your world might it help to tell or listen to a story?

All the best,

Gage

Circle Resources
Center for Courage and Renewal http://www.couragerenewal.org/
Peer Spirit http://www.peerspirit.com/
The World Cafe http://www.theworldcafe.com/

Coloring Between the LInes

2009-11-15T10:03:00.021-06:00

When I lead a workshop on Creative Leadership, one of my favorite exercises is one that often perplexes people at first. I spread out a selection of mandalas, ask them to choose one that interests them and take it home to color. [“Mandalas (the name comes from the Sanskrit word for circle) are symmetrical geometric designs, usually enclosed within a circle, a square or a rectangle, that serve as…focal points for meditation.” Mandala Designs by Martha Bartfeld.] Workshop participants take their choice home and color it. It’s fascinating to see the varied reactions to this assignment. Some are gleeful – the idea of coloring takes them right back to happy memories. Some are skeptical – why in the world should they find time to color. But the exercise does have a purpose and many potential benefits.

If people are asked about being creative in their work environment, my experience is that they give many reasons why it’s not possible, but the most common is some variant on 'it won’t work': bureaucracy, rules, time, money, an entire list of constraints that make creativity impossible. Of course all those constraints do exist. No matter the size of the organization, mammoth bureaucracy or mom-and-pop shop, there are constraints. Outside of work, there are just as many barriers: time, family, chores. The list can feel endless and it’s real; the sky is rarely the limit. There truly are always constraints. And that’s the point of the mandala exercise – to practice creativity within the barriers, to color within the lines.

Piers Ibbotson in The Illusion of Leadership: Directing Creativity in Business and the Arts says it this way, “Necessity is the mother of invention; if we are not working up against some resistance, if we are not up against some sort of boundary, then we are not creative.” In fact, according to Ibbotson, defining those boundaries is a critical leadership task. “Creative leaders need to be able to identify, articulate and express constraints that provoke the team to creative responses….Describing the nature of the boundaries in the right way allows us to control the direction of the effort while allowing sufficient space for the unexpected or the superb to emerge.”

The mandala exercise has several purposes. On one level it is to encourage workshop participants to remember how it feels to be childlike in the sense of being open to new ideas and willing to try something without worrying about the result. There’s no 8right or wrong and no grade or evaluation. On another level, when participants are willing to spend a little time on this, it is a door to some quiet time in their busy lives. Most of all though, this exercise is an illustration of Ibbotson’s point and as participants see the amazing results of their work and that of their colleagues, it becomes clear that great creativity, in some cases great beauty, can appear in spite of and because of the constraints defined by the lines on the page.

So, the next time you hear yourself complaining about the limits you face, stop for a moment and reframe those limits as opportunities for creativity. If you can’t do ‘this’, what might you do instead to reach your goal? When the rules won’t let you do ‘that’, what might you do within the rules to help you attain your purpose? If you are in a leadership role and have to enforce the rules, your task becomes finding a way to help people see the opportunities for creativity. Coloring between the lines doesn’t have to be limiting, it can be the basis for great beauty, for “the unexpected or the superb to emerge.”

Keep coloring,

Gage

The mandalas at the top are some I colored several summers ago. They are from the book Mandalas for Meditation edited by Zoe Frances.

Valued Leadership

2009-11-08T16:48:00.006-06:00

“Let’s not just talk about our company values, let’s put them into action. Let’s not just memorize them, let’s live them.” Ron Kendrick as quoted in Everyone Leads: It Takes Each One of Us to Make a Difference compiled by Dan Zadra

Recently in a workshop, a participant wondered why her department’s leadership team was comprised only of people with the top titles. Her point was that there were administrative assistants in the department who had good ideas so why not include them.

Her question points out the important difference between leadership and role or position. In most organizations, there is a group which may be called the leadership team or the executive council, or the cabinet. But no matter the name, the group is composed of the people with the top titles who are charged with the responsibility of running the organization. If the organization is a strong one, that group is also composed mostly of leaders. And, in the best situations the leadership group understands there are other leaders in the organizations and fosters and supports leadership in all its facets.

The hard reality is that it is just not possible for people from all levels to serve on the formal leadership team, whatever it is called. The people who serve on the formal leadership team have specific responsibilities to the organization that can not be shared. Sometimes this is a matter of law, sometimes of internal regulations and sometimes it is simply a matter of practicality. Conversely, there are leadership issues that would benefit from the widest possible input and are appropriate for the inclusion of people from all levels of the organization. When that is that case, there is an opportunity for different kinds of leadership teams.

But what if your organization doesn’t create these kinds of leadership teams? I still think there is a way for everyone in an organization to start exercising leadership today. Look at your organization’s stated values. There are values for both the larger organization and for your specific department. Take some time to really study those values and think about how they apply to your work and the ways you interact with everyone. Now, start living them – all day, every day, in everything you do. Do your best to make every task, every conversation, each interaction, every question you ask in line with those values. Be intentional about it and, when appropriate, talk about it. If these are the true values of your organization, you will be exercising leadership and over time it will make a difference and be recognized.

If, as can happen, the lived values are different than the espoused values, that will become clear. Or you may begin to see that your personal values don’t match the organizational values. In those cases you may face some hard choices if you want to be a leader in your work organization. You may have to find another organization in which to lead.

However, in my experience, even though we don’t all hit the value standard perfectly every time, trying to live up to the values of a successful organization is an effective way to become a leader. So, don’t wait to be acting on your values and those of the organization and leadership will happen.

Best wishes,

Gage

Leadership - Not a Spectator Sport

2009-11-01T14:25:00.007-06:00

“Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgement (sic) will be surer;…. Go some distance away because the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance, and a lack of harmony or proportion is more readily seen.” Leonardo Da Vinci as quoted in Wisdom of the Ages: 60 Days to Enlightenment by Wayne Dyer

Leadership is a participative exercise, not a spectator sport. There's really only one way to learn and grow as a leader and that is to get out of your chair and do it. And then pay attention to what happened and try again. It's the only way to learn what really works and the only way to develop your own style of leadership.

One component of leadership is balance though there are many different balancing acts that leaders must learn through experience. Below are three stories that have helped me work on one specific balancing act.

*Early in my career on two different occasions I found myself cleaning residence halls. My title at the time was Associate Dean of Students and it had not occurred to me that ‘other duties as assigned’ included scrubbing the bathrooms in one hall one year and sweeping all the rooms and hallways in a different hall another year. However, the issue was simple in both cases; if I wanted the residence halls to be ready for Move-In, my participation was required.

*On another occasion, my title was Director of Alumni Services and I was part of the Development Division. I was working with several women, all of whom had a secretarial title, to complete a large mailing for the Annual Fund. A colleague who also had a ‘big’ title came through, observed for a moment and then said, “Well, Gage, it’s good to see you can do menial labor too.” I was appalled. The others were not surprised. None of us made a comment.

*I listened to a conversation between two colleagues. Colleague 1 was my peer, an Associate Dean responsible for a large, complex department. She was the most egalitarian person I’ve ever met. She, quite literally, wouldn’t ask someone to do something she wouldn’t do. Colleague 2 was our boss and she was frustrated with the amount of time Colleague 1 was spending at the copy machine. Her comment was “I’m not paying you the amount you earn to make copies. Other people should be doing that.”

Together these form the outlines of a lesson on balance. Sometimes leaders need to pitch in and do the dirty work. We should never be above moving the tables, stuffing the envelopes, or when necessary cleaning up after, or before, the event. And yet in a leadership role, we are in fact paid to do, or assigned to, or have taken on, a different set of duties We have to find a way to be part of the work that is being done and yet not forget that we have a responsibility for the bigger picture.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one way to learn this lesson and that’s to get in there and try to figure it out. And then to step away and see if we got it right. And then to try it again. Definitely not a game for spectators.

If It Is True

2009-10-31T18:04:00.009-05:00

If It Is True

If it is true,

(and I believe that it is)

that we can all be leaders,

then our organizations are healthiest

when we all choose to lead.

If it is true,

(and I believe that it is)

that leaders are learners,

then our leadership is strongest

when we are willing to be taught.

If it is true,

(and I believe that it is)

that we are all creative,

then our organizations are most original

when we embrace new ideas.

If it is true

(and I believe that it is)

that we lead from who we are,

then our leadership is truest

when we are true to ourselves.

If it is true

(and I believe that it is)

that we want strong leaders and dynamic organizations,

then we must choose to lead,

we must be willing to learn,

we must embrace new ideas, and

we must be true to ourselves.

"The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual..."

2009-10-25T20:57:00.010-05:00

"The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community." William James

This past week, a group of staff came together to put on a talent show for UTSA. Some people might see such an event as frivolous, not worth people’s time and yet this gathering was important for the organization in two ways.

In thinking about what happened, I have come to understand it as an act of leadership on the part of the participants. I doubt any of them decided to be part of the talent show to be leaders or even thought of it as leadership. But I see leadership occurring on two levels. One element of leadership is the ability to take a risk. We would usually define risk taking as trying a new program or idea, or making a significant change, or any number of highly difficult and major actions.

So how does participating in a talent show constitute a risk? To my way of thinking, and I was a participant last year, one of the toughest audiences to perform for is a group of peers and colleagues from one’s work organization. No matter how confident you are in your talent, there’s always the possibility of looking foolish and looking foolish in front of supervisors and perhaps the people we supervise is an unpleasant idea for anyone. I think this fits the definition of taking a risk.

The other reason I see this as leadership is due to one of the results of their actions. By their willingness to take this risk and perform in the talent show, they created a shared experience for members of the organization. I believe that shared experience leads to community and a sense of community makes it more possible for individuals to come together around shared ideas, values and purposes. All of these ways of working together help us solve the problems we face, help us bring our different perspectives into the mix and help us bring the best of everyone into our work.

And so Friday afternoon, several hundred people took the time from work to go to a talent show. Seems a frivolous event. Many people chose not to go, perhaps thinking it was not worth leaving the work of the organization. However, people were in fact exercising leadership. By engaging in the leadership and by coming together in community, they made a difference.

Leadership and community. Two important elements for an organization. Two critical aspects for making a difference in an organization. Two fundamental ways to help individuals celebrate the human spirit in our organizations. Two ways to help all of us have a better experience in our work life. All that from a talent show. That’s not frivolous at all.

And yes, some of the participants were also dancing,

Gage

Putting your best foot forward

2009-10-18T18:35:00.007-05:00

Most first lessons in ballroom dance begin the same way - the leader, traditionally a man, learns to start on the left foot and the follower, traditionally a woman, learns to start on the right foot. This very basic concept is of critical importance to the health and safety of the dancers’ toes and essential in the development of a smoothly functioning partnership. Those first lessons set up what seems to be a very rigid, hierarchical, and traditional leadership dynamic – one leader who always leads and one follower who always follows with ‘back leading’ by the follower a serious faux pas. The leader is assigned full responsibility for success.

But as is true with many things, initial impressions are misleading. The reality is that this pairing is a true partnership. Each partner has a specific role, but both are essential to the success of the whole. The strongest most talented leader in the world can only go so far with a follower who doesn’t want to dance. And the better a follower can follow, the better the leader can lead and the smoother the dance will become. And, of course, the opposite is also true – a talented follower won’t look good with a leader who only knows two or three basic steps and never gives followers a chance to reach their full potential as a dancer.

As the dancers learn more, it becomes even more complex. Sometimes the leader leads, but sometimes the leader’s role is to get out of the follower’s way. In that situation, followers have to know what to do on their own within the structure provided. Sometimes the leader provides the momentum for moving around the dance floor. However, there are situations for which the follower must provide that energy and if that transition of responsibility isn’t smooth, progress stutters. Dancing is truly a partnership; it is not just a leader leading and a follower following.

And the ideas hold true away from the dance floor. Think about your organizations and their leaders and followers. Identify a department or committee, whatever makes sense in that organization and analyze the ‘footwork’ of the members. Are the leaders and followers in step or are they both trying to start on the left foot? Does the leader give clear directions, help the followers know what they need to do, and guide them in learning new moves? What about the followers? Do they take responsibility for their roles and provide energy and momentum to support the partnership or are they waiting to be pushed around the floor?

Great followers make a good leader better just as great leaders lift followers to new heights. The responsibility for success in our organizations belongs to each of us no matter our title or our role. The responsibility for momentum and forward progress belongs to all of us. Our dancing and our organizations work best when we use the best talents of everyone no matter what role they have. Remember “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.”* Now that's putting the best foot forward.

Keep dancing,

Gage

*I've found this quote attributed to Faith Whittlesey, Ann Richards and Annonymous.

"Curiosity is the key to creativity." Akio Morita

2009-10-11T19:09:00.001-05:00

Last week I wrote about curiosity. Over the past few years, I’ve come to understand that curiosity’s companion, creativity, is also an essential part of effective leadership.

I know how some of you are reacting as you read that because I’ve seen and heard so many reactions in workshops when I bring up this topic. And, to be honest, those scoffing noises would have been coming from me not so long ago. Some time ago I said to Peter, my husband, that I was not creative and he looked at me in surprise, saying ‘when someone brings you a problem you come up with 15 different solutions; you’re one of the most creative people I know.’ My response was that’s not creativity, that’s just problem-solving. Of course, what is obvious in this story to everyone but me is that we have to be creative to solve problems! I share this story now, and when I teach my workshop on Creative Leadership, because it is just one example of the many ways we define creativity so that it doesn’t apply to us.

Thanks to Peter’s insights and the many books of Julia Cameron, I’ve come to understand creativity in a much broader way and to agree with Cameron that all of us are creative. Some of us squelch aspects of it, some of us nurture it, but all of us have creativity, are creative. In her book Walking in the World: The Practical Art of Creativity, (notice the word in the subtitle, Practical, that’s putting creativity to work), Cameron says this, “Creativity is inspiration coupled with initiative…”* Sounds like another good definition for good leadership.

Like curiosity, we need creativity in our organizations. We need people to wonder, we need people who are willing to imagine new ways to do tasks, new ways to be together, new ways to serve. Part of the job of a leader is to imagine the way things could be – we usually call that having vision – but it sounds like creativity to me. Part of the job of a leader is creating (there’s that word again) an environment that encourages curiosity and imagining and wondering. Instead of finding that scary, a true leader is willing to put some energy behind new possibilities. A true leader might even get out of the way and let others initiate change.

Have you felt an urge to be creative lately? Did you squelch it or nurture it? If you find yourself squelching your creativity, Julia Cameron suggests we try one little change that we’ve been wanting to make. It could be a new picture in your home, a new color in your wardrobe or a new way of organizing your desk. It’s all creativity. Remember what movie director Frank Capra said, “A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.” So next time, listen carefully to what your creativity is trying to tell you. I truly believe that bringing our creative selves to our organizational life will, over time, improve life for everyone.

Keep dancing (and creating),

Gage

*Walking in the World: The Practical Art of Creativity, Julia Cameron, 2002

Curiosity as an essential leadership trait.

2009-10-05T16:16:00.002-05:00

"The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. …Never lose a holy curiosity." Albert Einstein

In writing for the UTSA Student Affairs Newsletter last week about my experiences with Facebook, I began to think about the importance of curiosity in effective leadership. I realized that I had not been curious about social networking because I had made assumptions about its usefulness, or lack thereof in my life, both personal and professional. Those assumptions made it easy for me to ignore any social networking. Once I was pushed into joining Facebook, I found that I enjoyed it on a number of levels and realized that I was wrong in my assumptions.

It may not have been social networks, but I suspect most of us have something that we have ignored, failed to investigate, or even sneered at because we didn't understand it and we didn't investigate because those assumptions led to a lack of curiosity. And that has implications for our leadership work. A failure to be curious means that we aren't engaged in the world around us. It can lead us to write off someone's new idea, or decide that a new theory has no relevance to our particular area, or be bored with someone's newest enthusiasm. As a result we don't support others in trying new things or putting old things to new uses and that is a failure of leadership.

A 2007 article on a website called Lifehack,* written by Donald Latumahina lists four reasons why curiosity is important: 1. Curiosity makes your mind active instead of passive, 2. Curiosity makes your mind observant of new ideas 3. Curiosity opens up new worlds and possibilities, and 4. Curiosity brings excitement into your life.

When I read those four reasons, I begin to see curiosity as an essential element of leadership. Try it. Substitute the word leadership for curiosity in those four sentences. It transforms curiosity into an essential component of effective leadership and one that I rarely, if ever, see listed as important. So, as I said in the Student Affairs newsletter, if you ever hear yourself dismissing a new idea or technology or a new application of an old one, I hope you'll stop and be curious.

Better yet, what are you curious about? What might happen if you investigated it? It doesn't have to be obviously related to your work. Curiosity, like so many things, is a habit. And while the adage says that curiosity killed the cat, it seems to me that it's more likely that a lack of curiosity can kill your leadership.

*www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/4-reasons-why-curiosity-is-important-and-how-to-develop-it.html

UTSA Student Affairs Staff News http://www.utsa.edu/students/sanews/

"Dancing is just discovery, discovery, discovery." Martha Graham

2009-09-24T21:32:00.001-05:00

The more I study, and write about, and think about, and try to practice leadership the more I see the ways in which leadership is a form of dancing. We use many of the same words, leading, following, partnership just to name a few. The quote above is just one about dancing which works equally well when the word leading is substituted for dancing. - Leading is just discovery, discovery, discovery - discovery about organizations, about people and most of all about oneself.

When I facilitate a workshop on leadership, I start by explaining the basic concepts that inform my thinking about the topic, so it makes sense to start this blog in the same way.

1st - Everyone has the potential to be a leader. Some of us seek it out, some of us are asked to take on the role, but for all of us when there is something we care about, some way we see the chance to make a difference and we decide to try, we will begin to realize our individual potential for leadership. Some of us come to it more easily than others, and we all can work to learn and improve our skills, but all of us have the potential for leadership.

2nd - Leadership is a relationship not a job or position. Leaders need followers or there is no one to lead. Therefore, contrary to some opinions, followers aren't sheep or drones but are an essential part of effective leadership. Additionally, all of us serve as followers at times no matter what titles we might have. The interaction between someone acting as a leader and someone acting as a follower is leadership as a relationship.

3rd - Healthy organizations have leaders throughout the organization. Leadership is not dependent on title or position and a healthy organization supports and develops leaders continually.

4th - All of us are creative beings. Creativity is an essential skill for leaders and it is at least as important to foster and support creativity as it is to develop leadership.

5th - It's possible to create healthy organizations that support leaders, followers, creativity and the human spirit and fulfill the purpose for which the organization exists.

In my work, my teaching and now in this blog I enjoy exploring the many ways in which we can grow healthy organizations, develop effective leaders, support strong followers, foster creativity and engage our spirit in all that we do. I look forward to hearing what others have to say about these ideas and hope together we can improve organizational life for all of us. After all, the reality is that everything we do is "just discovery, discovery, discovery."

Keep on dancing,

Gage