
IF you're not interested in the church implications, begin the podcast at 2:20 minutes, and you can end it around the 30 minute mark. Tune in to Episode 8: Marty St. George on nurturing organizational culture at JetBlue. Tell me what you think!
“True leadership only exists if people follow when they would otherwise have the freedom to *not* follow.” Jim Collins
"Rigid denial doesn't work. It's unsustainable, for individuals, for families, for societies... and for our planet. When emotions are pushed aside or ignored, they get stronger."
"Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life."This TED talk is an outstanding, genuine, poignant discussion of emotions, stress and the management of it all.
“knowing your type when it comes to personality is important, because by increasing our awareness of where we stand in terms of introversion and extroversion, we can develop a better sense of our tendencies, manage our weak spots, and play to our strengths.”I have found that developing my self-awareness really helps me as a leader. Not only does it help me get out of the way when working with others, it also helps me read others more accurately. Check it out.
"The work is doing it when you don't feel like it, doing it when it's not easy."He goes on to describe the way to keep writing - by showing up every day for work and writing, regardless of whether it's good or bad. It's the discipline that matters. We have to write a bunch of really bad stuff to produce anything good. As the hilarious and winsome writer Anne Lamott says,
"How to write: Butt in chair. Start each day anywhere. Let yourself do it badly. Just take one passage at a time. Get butt back in chair."Possibly the best part of Godin's simple advice is that it applies to nearly every effort under the sun. I won't feel like visiting that person in the hospital, but I will go. It's just the right thing to do. I won't feel inspired to exercise when I have 100+ emails still in my inbox and several projects approaching deadlines. But I desperately need to get my heart moving if I want to stay alive.
"What writer's block really is, is a series of bad habits and fear, piled one atop another. It's fictional. We don't *have* it; maybe we may feel it, but it's not who we are. We are not blocked; what we are is afraid."So I have tagged this one as a saved podcast, to listen to when I'm stuck, lacking in motivation, or... if I'm really being honest, AFRAID. As I've said to many others in leadership development, 90% of what you need to get done gets accomplished just by showing up. So forget about the excuses, and show up. (ending with a self pep-talk!)
The delicate balance of mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves. (Steven Spielberg)My job as a mentor is not to reproduce a mini-me; rather, my role to help someone discover who they are.
Mentors change lives, but students change mentors’ lives more. (Richie Norton)
What I've found about it is that there are some folks you can talk to until you're blue in the face --they're never going to get it and they're never going to change. But every once in a while, you'll run into someone who is eager to listen, eager to learn, and willing to try new things. Those are the people we need to reach. We have a responsibility as parents, older people, teachers, people in the neighborhood to recognize that. (Tyler Perry)Amen to that. The biggest job I face as a mentor is connecting with someone who is teachable and hungry to learn. The rest is easy.
I think systemically. I think about problems in their context... not just what causes them, but what maintains them. How is the relationship system, how is the family organized around the problem?This comes from a classic approach in therapy known as Bowen Family Systems Therapy that I learned in my one whole counseling class in seminary, Even though I only had that one class in grad school on counseling, it is something I have found profoundly helpful over the years, and I've tried to grow in knowledge and depth of insight as I encounter stress and conflict in groups.
Applying Bowen theory to work systems has the potential to create transformative change as people become aware of hidden emotional processes in the system. Understanding these emotional processes through Bowen theory takes some of the mystery out of workplace behaviors that do not make logical sense.If you are experiencing any sort of dysfunction or dysregulation in the workplace, it might be worthwhile to start with Perel's podcast today, and then go from there in terms of understanding how in stress we tend to organize around the one Bowen calls "the identified patient," the one whom the system directs all of their anxiety toward as a way to divert attention from anyone else. It's pretty fascinating stuff!
"...with Coco we tried to take a step forward towards a world where non-white children can grow up seeing characters in movies that look, and talk, and live like they do. Representation matters, marginalized people deserve to feel like they belong and I hope that we made a difference and I hope it's just the beginning. Muchas gracias."This came from the acceptance speech Lee Unkrich in response to receiving an Oscar for Best Live Animated Feature, for the film Coco. I saw this film when it came out with a cross-section of Anglo and Latino friends, and we wept big soggy tears in the last several minutes, but with smiles on our faces too. I can verify that my friends of Mexican descent whom I sat with that night indeed cherished this rare opportunity to see themselves and their heritage celebrated so beautifully. Like Unkrich, I too hope it's just the beginning.
"If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together."Apparently an African proverb, this was quoted by Jo Saxton, a self-described "Nigerian Brit" who was a keynote speaker for this conference that I attended this past Monday. Saxton is a truly inspiring leader and a force to be reckoned with. I look forward to hearing more from her.
"What, after all, are the world's deepest problems? They are what they always have been, the individual's problems--the meaning of life and death, the mastery of self, the quest for value and worth-whileness and freedom within, the transcending of loneliness, the longing for love and a sense of significance, and for peace. Society's problems are deep, but the individual's problems go deeper; Solzhenitsyn, Dostoyevsky, or Shakespeare will show us that, if we hesitate to take it from the Bible."This comes from J.I. Packer, and landed in my inbox through a daily email called "The Christian Quotation of the Day." I won't deny that they frequently fall flat for me, but occasionally a lovely one appears. I liked this one because I appreciated the way Packer plainly states the big existential questions of life, in a way that caught my attention. And I'm still left pondering his contrast between individual and society's problems: do I agree with him? Not sure.
“I remember reading, Marian Wright Edelman, and she was actually writing about children, and it hit me, in relation to kids, and for women as a whole, where she says, 'you can’t be what you can’t see.' If you don’t see it, you wonder if there’s something wrong with you, something's presumptuous, something arrogant about you for wanting it in some way. I think women have a complicated relationship with ambition anyway."Resonant with the first quote by Lee Unkrich, this was quoted by Jo Saxton (I know, the connections between my quotes in this post run amok) during a podcast interview with Jen Hatmaker that I listened to today. I really connected with Saxton's words regarding the contradictory messages that women receive regarding leadership. We are so often asked to be responsible for things, but just as often are deprived of the fruits of those efforts. And if we press forward and still ask for opportunities and recognition, we are often snubbed or shut down. I appreciated the dialogue of this episode and still hope for change...
After completing this part of the course, he was flown to Brunei, where he was helicoptered into a jungle filled with orangutans and cloud leopards and poisonous snakes. He had to survive for a week while eluding a band of soldiers tasked with hunting him down. The administrators of the course had eyes on the ground to observe him—to see what kind of clay he was made of. Later, he was subjected to an interrogation intended to break him. “You are beaten up,” one applicant told a reporter, noting that any vulnerability was exploited: “If you’ve got a phobia about spiders, they’ll use it against you.” Each year, only about fifteen per cent of applicants pass the selection course. Worsley was among them.I mean, really.
“Why? On account of the great geographical discoveries, the important scientific results? Oh no; that will come later, for the few specialists. This is something all can understand. A victory of human mind and human strength over the dominion and powers of Nature; a deed that lifts us above the great monotony of daily life; a view over shining plains, with lofty mountains against the cold blue sky, and lands covered by ice-sheets of inconceivable extent . . . the triumph of the living over the stiffened realm of death.”Though Worsley's journey was outwardly far more impressive, the older I get the more I have decided that just living life is, on a smaller scale, a sort of "victory of human mind and human strength over the dominion and powers of Nature." Over the course of our lives we face trauma and tragedy, profound joys and paralyzing sorrows, both personal and global.
Maturity is not based on talent or any of the mental or physical gifts that help you ace an IQ test or run fast or move gracefully. It is not comparative. It is earned not by being better than other people at something, but by being better than you used to be. It is earned by being dependable in times of testing, straight in times of temptation. Maturity does not glitter. It is not built on the traits that make people celebrities. A mature person possesses a settled unity of purpose. The mature person has moved from fragmentation to centeredness, has achieved a state in which the restlessness is over, the confusion about the meaning and purpose of life is calmed. The mature person can make decisions without relying on the negative and positive reactions from admirers or detractors because the mature person has steady criteria to determine what is right. That person has said a multitude of noes for the sake of a few overwhelming yeses.People have asked me what I call the work I do, and to keep it brief, I've decided to call it "leadership development." That's the short answer. But if I have more time, or the person keeps probing, I try to venture into the territory described here -- I like to walk with people as they seek to mature. We cannot force people to do this. But if they decide to step out into the "white darkness" of life itself, it's nice to have a buddy. I'm so grateful for the privilege of getting to do that with many people over the years, and yet some days, it feels like I'm just getting started. As Worsley quoted, “Always a little further.”
If you have sat through (endured? enjoyed?) one of my Strengths Finder presentations, you know that I often refer back to my life as an eter...