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Our US national government entered its new fiscal year October 1, 2010. We still don’t have a budget. I struggle to understand how Congress members can think this is something to write home about.
True, the budget of any organization, be it a government, a business or a household, reflects and reveals its values. True, there are important issues to debate and to dialogue about. Both these facts call for careful and intentional budget actions.
What is happening while we wait? I was a senior manager in a Federal Department during periods when we operated under continuing resolutions and was there during a government shutdown that lasted long enough for me to apply for unemployment benefits. I know where resources must be directed and can’t be directed.
During a continuing resolution, operating at the level of the previous year means trying to continue programs mandated by legislation even if proper execution of those programs required new funding. This requires feats of ingenuity and innovation and requires redirection of existing resources that were going to be applied in other important ways. And, during the time that Congress was not enacting a budget they continued to pass other legislation that must be carried out even though not funded. More hours are spent on this. Other new and important improvements can’t be undertaken because they are not funded.
When there is a threat of a shutdown, resources are further redirected into planning for a shutdown, assessing what is needed within each agency to continue programs required by law, and determining across agencies and departments what that will look like. This hits every level of each organization.
Think what could be achieved if our tax payer dollars, for now months at a time, instead of being directed to rethinking plans for program maintenance, finding ‘no new money solutions’ for newly legislated programs, and planning for a shutdown, could instead be directed to doing the work that this nation needs to have done. The expenditure of time, and therefore money, over the past six months has been necessary without a budget, but it is a waste.
Do we want to use tax dollars prudently? Let’s have our money go toward productive activities rather than treading water in murky indecision.
April 6th, 2011
Sometimes when I am doggedly pursuing a path nothing seems to happen, nothing changes. It is as if I am a glacier, determined to go in that particular direction, and the rate at which I overpower obstacles is just that– glacial.
What would be an opposite way of approaching the world? Perhaps flexibility. A stream is flexible. If I were like a stream, instead of trying to moving through the stones in my path I would recognize them and flow around them. I would choose a soft silty bank as an opportunity to enlarge my boundaries rather than a rocky shore line. I wonder if I could even rejoice in the obstacles because they create different opportunities, just as a stream’s music emanates from the water moving against sticks and stones. I would appreciate the light that falls on me and reflect it to others. As ideas like leaves fall against me I would carry them along with me as I journey. I might eventually reach a lake or a sea. I think that goal pales compared to the drama of the journey and the experience of the moment.
Metaphor is a powerful tool for learning, and we use it in coaching and facilitation. Another powerful tool used in coaching to ask someone what would be another way of seeing a situation, even an opposite way of approaching it. The applied sciences are increasingly taking lessons from nature to create products that solve problems in new ways. There are lessons there for the human heart.
March 25th, 2011
It looks like everyone enjoys surprising fun and the chance to be creative. I have to share this video about how some engineers encouraged people to take the stairs in a subway station. I love it. This is a subway station in Sweden, now with a piano stairway.
January 26th, 2011
I am grateful to John McCain’s contribution to “The Washington Post” on Sunday, January 16, “After the Shootings, Obama Reminds the Nation of the Golden Rule.” I found it important to hear a voice “from the other side of the aisle”, and for it to be a senior senator from the state in which the tragedy occurred and a former fellow contender for the presidency made the statement all the stronger.
Sen. McCain allows for our human frailty in suggesting we might not always be able to refrain from some strong rhetoric, but avows we are all capable of avoiding character assassination. I would like to not let us off the hook too easily. Although we might occasionally fail, I would like us to strive for humility, for respect for others and self, and for an openness to real discourse in private and public arenas.
Peter Block, in “Community: The Structure of Belonging” (2008, Berrett-Koehler, San Francisco), cites some concepts of Peter Koestenbaum. One of those is that “choosing freedom is also the source of our willingness to choose to be accountable. The insight is that freedom is what creates accountability.” I think this has profound meaning for public discourse. If I exercise my freedom to speak on a public issue do I also hold myself accountable to speak truly and to listen openly to the speech of others?
January 17th, 2011
That’s a phrase I don’t hear much anymore, “from the heart”, or even “heartfelt.”
As it comes to mind and I’m realizing it’s rarity now I wonder how to turn that around. The heart as a symbolic seat of tender emotion and soulful connections has something to offer us who sometimes are disembodied brains or neighborhoods without community.
I just graduated from the coaching program of Newfield Network, where hearfelt expressions are the norm, not the exception. I saw on the faces of my colleagues the joy of connection and community and emotional and spiritual support that can only come with heart to heart communications. Communications in all the ways that people communicate, many of them unspoken. Of course openness to one’s own emotions and self are important to being able to make an open and heartfelt communication.
I am moved to write this having just watched President Barack Obama’s speech in Tuscon recognizing those whose lives were just taken and those whose lives are endangered by the shocking event on Saturday. I went through the emotions with him as he spoke honoring all those lives; I rose to his uplifting request for humility and honesty in our public discourse; and I said ‘wow’. A speech from the heart in a public place. I yearn for more.
January 13th, 2011
This is the season of gratitude. In gratitude to family and friends we make an extra effort to show our appreciation. In gratitude for being given life on this earth we reach out and make donations to groups that are trying to ease life for others who are in difficulty. Gratitude is an opening emotion– it opens the heart and I feel it opening my posture as I experience it.
Gratitude grows out of acceptance. Alan Sieler tells us in “Coaching to the Human Soul: Ontological coaching and Deep Change, volume II” [Newfield Australia, 2007] that “as a mood, Gratitude is not triggered by specific events. Gratitude is an ongoing feeling of gratefulness and appreciation for our life circumstances and how we are able to participate in life”. (p. 306) We often think about gratitude as being directed toward another person or life circumstance. We can also be grateful for ourselves. When we ask what it is about ourselves for which we are grateful, we can only answer with those things which we have accepted in ourselves. To notice is powerful. When we notice we can accept.
Gratitude is one of the emotions of positivity. Barbara Fredrickson in her book, “Positivity” [Crown Publishers, USA, 2009] reports research that reveals the transformative nature of positivity. She states that “gratitude opens your heart and carries the urge to give back– to do something good in return, either for the person who has helped you or for someone else.” She does ask us to guard against what she calls the “evil twin” indebtedness. (p. 41)
One constant source of wonder and gratitude for me is nature: leaves outside my window, bare twigs vibrating in the wintry bluster, frost on the morning grass, the penetrating warmth of sunshine, the smoothness of a stone that has been polished by water and wear, the smell of the air after a rain, the sound of a squirrel moving through the leaves, the warble of a songbird, the taste of a fresh-plucked berry.
With an open heart I can be more present for other people and more available to them. I would like for every day to be a day of gratitude. I have begun asking each morning “What am I grateful for today?” I leave the question hanging there in the air, knowing that as I progress through the day many things will then arise to fill in the answer.
December 8th, 2010
It has been cold and blustery here in the DC area. Sunday I was raking leaves in the wind because my neighbor’s trees drops its leaves after all the others are done. I thought it was humorous to rake leaves in a wind that could quickly scatter them after I lifted the rake. And I thought of Sisyphus rolling his boulder uphill. I realized, though, that with this fifth raking of the season I was taking the work in stride. I believe I was finally in shape for it, having been strengthened by the earlier work. Unlike Sisyphus who might not have taken any joy from the strength he was gaining, I was appreciative of the role of practice.
In coaching we urge people to adopt practices that will strengthen some “muscle” they will then use in life or work. For instance, if you are trying to be more relaxed and open with people at work, maybe you’ll smile at yourself in the mirror every morning to remind yourself that a smile is a quick way to relax. The phrase “baby steps” is used frequently in speech, usually about someone else I fear. Adopting some baby steps is a great way of growing into a behavior you would like to bring to the world. And sometimes you can determine some small steps that make a small difference in themselves.
Studies of world class masters in several fields have shown that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve that level of mastery. How can we expect success with a new behavior or new endeavor on the first try? Sometimes it may feel futile, but perseverance is rewarded.
At the end of the day, I had raked and bagged 6 more bags of leaves.
December 7th, 2010
Two weeks ago I was in Hawaii, on Oahu. It was a wonderful experience. There was so much sensory information and so much beauty and wonder and peace that I could not write. Eventually I will write about it.
I returned home very briefly then went on business travel to Minneapolis (hometown, yay). Home again briefly for a weekend and I am back on business travel, this time to the North Redington Beach area outside of Tampa, across the bay. A new experience.
Could this beach be the beaches I saw on Oahu? No, for a couple of reasons. I was fortunate to have visited the non-commercial beaches of the windward side. Here, on Redington Beach, it is commercial. I look out the window of the hotel dining room onto patio dining and onto the beach below. Is it fabulous? I think it would have been fabulous if I had not recently been to beach areas that were primarily residential and low key.
I saw sea gulls. Big deal? anywhere on the eastern seaboard it is not a big deal. But in Hawaii I did not see seagulls, or caught maybe one or two glances of wingspans that resembled them. So suddenly seagulls have become special again. (How many seagull photos do I have lurking in my home archives?)
The water felt warm and wonderful to my feet when I ventured out after dinner this first day. An exciting moment? Well, a good moment. The water in Hawaii had felt quite wonderful most of the time.
So how do we evaluate paradise? Is it in relation to where we have been recently? Can we only understand it in terms of our background and experience? I believe we understand everything in terms of our background and experience. The more I experience, the more I grow and know, and the larger an observer I am, and the more I can take in from new experiences.
July 19th, 2010
I had the pleasure of listening to some great Latin jazz on Saturday afternoon: Claudio Roditi and his ensemble and Eddie Palmieri and his band. Both groups swept the audience up with them, we were resonating to the rhythms of the music. Claudio Roditi, in acknowledging the contributions of the several individuals from DC Jazz Festival, also made another acknowledgment of interest. He said “Thank you to our audience. Without you there is no music.”
I have observed earlier that the individual voices of an organization come together to create a music that is unique to that organization. Tuning in to the nuances of the voices and getting new ideas from surprising notes and rhythms help an organization create a really vibrant and constantly emerging music. With the maestro’s comment, I now reflect on the role of our stakeholders and customers in the music that we make.
People involved in the performing arts frequently talk about the signals they received from a particular audience and the effect that had on them. Are we in other walks of life so attuned to the signals we receive from the people we would serve. A healthy relationship between organization and customers is a reciprocal one. The business has something to offer and it provides information to customers about what is possible in relationship with them. The purpose of the business is embedded in what it offers its customers and other stakeholders. The customers or potential customers signal the business with information about what they value. All parties derive something of value from the others and when the organization is listening it can respond and keep the relationship valuable.
This same notion exists in literary criticism, from which came the phrase “the second poet”. The first poet is the one who writes the poem; the second poet is the one who reads and makes meaning of the poem. How are the “second poets” who view our organization understanding its purpose and value?
Sometimes we are the audience and sometimes we are musicians. In both roles our voices are important. And in both roles our ears are important. How skilled are we in listening to our fellow musicians, and in listening to our audience?
June 14th, 2010
I was reading a nice article from the Newfield Network coaching program in which I am swimming about those sudden breakthroughs people have when the routine they are in is suddenly not routine and the immediate future must be something other than what we usually anticipate.
I suddenly thought of an interesting experience I had when I was in Napoli (Naples, Italy). I was experiencing the Museo Archeologica Nazionale, considered the most important archeological museum in Europe. After all, Pompeii, Herculaneum and Rome are all there in Italy, bringing together the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations.
Except for the few words of Italian I could pick up from my guidebook and interactions, I don’t speak Italian. I do know something of the Romance languages from a semester of Latin and several years of French and the fact that I speak English and have been an intentional student of languages. I was going through the museum with my taxi driver who had never been to it before. I was trying to really absorb what I saw. One time I commented on the eyes and the expression in a particular sculpture. My driver told me that the Italian tag on that exhibited called attention to that same thing. I felt happy at that.) As we continued through the exhibits, I tried to make sense of the cards I looked at with the items, using my observation skills and struggling to find the recognizable word roots from the Italian and make sense of what I was seeing. Sometimes my driver was next to me and could interpret. Sometimes he could not interpret because his English did not extend that far. And sometimes we were at different displays. I struggled through, amazed at the ancient artifacts. At one point I was facing one of those stand alone vertical sign explanations of the next phase of the exhibit. I continued to apply my struggling sense-making to it and was 2/3 of the way through it when I realized I was having an easy time of it, that in fact I seemed to understand all the words! At that breakthrough moment I was able to realize that I had just been reading English! No wonder I understood it all. Prior to that aha! moment I was focused on relating to the exhibit items themselves and content to struggle with my meager sense making of the language to understand how these objects had been used. With that in the forefront of my mind I did not realize the superficial format of what I was reading. In Gestalt terms, the figure for me was the meaning of the things I was observing and the ground (background) was the language in which explanations were written. When I had my aha! moment and understood both the figure and the ground I was able to read the last third of that long sign with ease and comfort.
The experience astonished me. It might even sound incredible to you, but please believe me— that’s exactly how the experience unfolded. It does reinforce for me the idea that a narrow focus can be important in penetrating the information that is there, and that a narrow focus can miss the context. A moment of awareness of other perspectives or more information about a situation can hep us view it more completely and generate new possibilities for us. Once I knew that English was occasionally used in this museum I could seek it out elsewhere to gain better clarity.
Breakthroughs happen all the time in many contexts. Sometimes as innocuous as the one I described, and sometimes so profound as to reveal how unhappy we have been or how our own voice has held us back. Whenever they occur, with whatever emotion they bring, breakthroughs are occasions for new discovery and fresh possibilities if we attend to them.
June 9th, 2010
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