I never need the news or the calendar to know that it is Memorial Day weekend. I live in Arlington about half a block from an I-66 overpass, a major conduit into Washington, DC. Rolling Thunder comes to town. I hear. And I know.
At any other time the nearly constant hum from traffic on I-66 is a distraction at best or an irritant. I prefer to listen to the songs of birds and crickets and the rustling of squirrels in the leaves. The day this past winter when I-66 was closed because of snow on the highway (a first!) the silence was beautiful.
At this time of year, though, the thunder from the highway is inspiring. In just listening I know what it will look like if I stand on the overpass and look out. The sound is continuous, and it does roll. The sound itself is exciting. And it is inspiring because these thousands of people stand for something. They are dedicated to making visible those Americans who have become invisible, who do not come home at all. I looked at their website and learned that Rolling Thunder is a nonprofit organization with 88 chapters across the country.
For me, Rolling Thunder has come to stand for more than what they intended, they represent what people can accomplish when they commit to a larger goal and band together in resolution. Where do I thunder is a question we might each ask ourselves.
May 30th, 2010
As I read the news this morning and saw that 1300 vessels are being brought into service to skim oil from the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, I thought about the many people who normally work those waters. They know the waters. Their rather fragile livelihood depends on them and has been interrupted by this oil spill catastrophe. Is BP employing these people who have boats, know the Gulf and are unable to pursue their normal occupation? Just a thought.
As I work with organizations I like to notice the value and strengths of the people there, and see how that awareness opens up new possibilities for action for the group.
May 29th, 2010
I want to call your attention to an article in a recent (March 2010) edition of Ode magazine, Great Expectations: How hope therapy can help banish mild mood disorders and boost happiness. The author is Catherine Ryan. The article notes that “people’s emotions often are determined by their expectations for the future.”
Interestingly, I have also been learning recently that people’s moods can affect the possibilities they see, and thus their possibilities for action and for a future. Emotion is central to action in us humans. Try thinking of the day ahead with arms crossed tightly across your chest, what can you entertain? Try thinking of the day ahead with relaxes arms and a smile on your face, do you see any other possibilities? If we see a cyclical quality here we might ask ourselves how we break out of negative cycles and enter positive ones.
Back to the article, which does not promote a “Pollyanna” view of the world or a disregard for negative emotions. It does point out that if we can see a positive road ahead we feel better about where we are today and we are better able to move forward. Not so surprising, huh? The surprise is, I think, that we don’t act on this idea more often.
May 28th, 2010
Let’s create a more relational and appreciative world around us.
Buzzing through our day, do people really see us for who we are? Do we really recognize the people who are part of us getting from here to there? How often do we express our appreciation? to the friend who overlooked our moody response? to the store clerk who made a transaction easy and pleasant?
The I See You Project is dedicated to helping us pause a moment and let someone know that we really see him/her and that we appreciate what that person has just done. Tell that someone what it was and what it meant to you. Then hand him/her a tag ticket to let that person know he/she has been tagged by the project as someone who is appreciated.
The ticket will ask that the person pass it on.
Perhaps in this small way, we can contribute to a milieu of relationships and appreciation.
Find tag tickets here I See You Tags
May 18th, 2010
This past week I heard a story from one of my coaching clients, a well-regarded manager. It was a story from which I learned about opportunities for play and joy, and he was happy to let me share it. The background is that he and I had talked in a previous session about awareness of what parts of his body react when he is experiencing tension, anger, fear, so he can then listen to his body. The sensation will show up before the conscious recognition of what is going on, and with that awareness a person can pause and choose a response.
Here is his story:
He got home from work after a long day. It was raining and he was tired. It was about time for dinner and he asked his wife where their 9 year old daughter was. His wife told him she was outside playing. He thought that was odd since it was raining. He went to the door and looked out. There was his daughter sitting in the mud and making mud pies. When she saw him she called with delight, “Look, Daddy, look!” His first impulse was to tell her to get out and get cleaned up. Before the words were out, he felt his body change. And remembering our conversation, he listened to that change and he paused before speaking. In that pause he saw the beauty of his daughter sitting there in the mud and the rain playing. He was so struck by the beauty of her play that he changed into his old tennis shoes and went out to join her. He sat in the rain and mud with his daughter, making mud pies, playing and laughing. It was joyful. He hadn’t played and laughed like that in years. He told me he will never forget this experience.
And I will never forget this story.
April 26th, 2010
Those of us who think about the demands of the complexity and fast moving times in which we work (and there are many of us) have become aware that we now need skills for nimbleness and creating change. To explore these skills I turn to jazz. Improvisational jazz is a wonderful, concrete, readily accessible example of co-creation, making something new together in the moment. The musicians usually begin with a piece of music that is already written. They agree on key and tempo; those along with the established chord changes, the instruments available to this performance and the talent of the musicians become parameters of the creation.
The music comes together as each musician responds to the piece of music, to what the other musicians are doing and to his/her own creative genius. One musician might depart from the structures in a solo; another musician might pick up on that departure and elaborate further on it, taking the entire group in a new direction. Each one is referencing what has gone before as well as what is happening in the moment and playing into his/her vision of what can be.
In the manifestation of this performance I observe several things:
The past and the present are relevant to the creation of the new state.
The new state, especially to the listener, does not occur in a moment in time but rather over the time that this piece is played. And it lingers beyond the end of the performance.
The musicians are doing referential work themselves. As mature artists, they are each keenly aware of what is happening with others and themselves, and using this in their decisions.
Some agreements take place, setting the stage for the work that these artists do.
The musicians have the courage to go forward without a plan defined by more than the piece of music they will work with and the commitment to create something interesting and beautiful together.
There is an energy exchange among the musicians and between the musicians and the audience that contributes to the direction of the creation. Environment is important
The strengths of each voice have the opportunity to show up in a performance that is truly polyvocal. Every voice is important and necessary to the whole.
I will be thinking further about the lessons for teams and organizations.
March 30th, 2010
I was at a several day conference recently– the NTL conference on directions in Organization Development. We were together Thursday evening, Friday, Friday evening, Saturday, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning. A really fine experience. I, mistakenly, chose to commute from Arlington to Silver Spring. It was mostly a mistake because I didn’t sleep enough. And partly because I missed out on some smashing late night conversations. And partly for the revelation of Sunday’s experience with me having left my badge at home.
All this time, presenters and participants alike had been wearing the red lanyard with the NTL badge every day. With 200 participants, this was very helpful to us in greeting people by name and reinforcing the connection that was created among us based on our mutual interests, commitments and respect. So Sunday I left my badge at home, inadvertently. And there I was. Naked. I suddenly felt I needed to stick with the people who had come to know me fairly well. They didn’t need the name badge. And the others I had spoken to less frequently– I was embarrassed to be in front of them. I found it was an interesting combination of concern for those who would greet me and probably couldn’t remember my name and concern for myself who wanted to feel I was part of the community and wanted to be greeted and embraced. This was a micro universe example of the need for belonging that certainly goes beyond a weekend conference.
How do I wear my badge? People generally are willing to greet me (and you) and even want to. Do I show up in a way that makes it easy for people to recognize and connect to me? Or do I appear to hide my badge?
March 29th, 2010
In watching Olympic events, I realize I am not in the majority, or at least not in the flow. As I expressed it to my offspring and my larger family, I value the artistry of the Olympic performances and the judging seems to go to pure technique. I began to say, for ’sports’ they need to calculate specific techniques, and my journalist son, Kyle, pointed out that these are games not sports.
A central truth of performance management and performance evaluation is that people do what they are evaluated on. When we determine evaluation criteria intentionally we can expect the performance we are requesting.
It is simply my problem that I would like skaters and skiers to be evaluated based on their creativity, their interpretation, and their embodiment of music or concept. I guess nobody asked me. I noticed that the point system that the judges were using determined what activities the individual skaters and skiers were willing to undertake. A men’s skating performance that was a beautiful, coherent interpretaion of a particular piece of music was deemed of low value because very particular techniques were not present in it.
We can argue at length about the scoring system for the Olympics. The lesson here is that it is not dissimilar to what each of us goes through regularly in our own organizations.
And the lesson comes back loud and clear yet again. If it is really important to the organization, articulate it in the evaluation process. And also be very careful of everything else. Let us not unintentionally devalue other important contributions.
February 21st, 2010
The bamboo in my back yard bends before the force of the snow. The snow will melt someday. The bamboo will stand tall again and dance in the wind.
February 9th, 2010
I noticed with interest the recent flurry about Jon Stewart and some remarks he made on “The Daily Show”. I am intrigued that people are criticizing a comic for his apparent positions and actions, as though they are casting him in the role of a serious figure on the political and political commentary scene.
I recall in one show, a year ago or more, one of Mr. Stewart’s guests was challenging him because he should have, in the guest’s view, covered a particular event and Mr. Stewart replied, laughing and insistent, “This is not a news show. This is a comedy show.”
Is it so strange that some of our humorists have risen to a level of regard usually applied to thought leaders? What is humor that it can have power over us? Of course, not everything that passes for humor does have power. There are forms of purported humor that trade on vulgarity or on divisiveness and attack. I am speaking, though, of the kind of humor that helps us see real situations from other perspectives. It helps us hold two different views simultaneously and we laugh at the juxtaposition.
Perspective taking or reframing is actually the stuff of conflict resolution, of creativity and of leadership. When we can see a situation in a new way we have learned and we have new decision making power. It is an important part of the work I do. It is not so hard to see a kind of leadership in people who make these alternate perspectives public.
When perspective taking is applied to societal events it can become satire. Political and social satire has quite a venerable tradition. The 17th century French dramatist Moliere is considered a genius of the theater and his comedies were very popular in his day. Those plays are still produced in American theaters, enjoyable for their satires of society and human foibles. Overlapping Moliere’s life by a few years was that of clergyman Jonathan Swift, writing in the early 1700s in England. Swifts’ satires are still read throughout the English speaking world. He remains one of the great writers of English prose. Swift’s passionate sense of what was right led him to involvement in public affairs in addition to his satirical writing. In the US a current day satirist recently made the transition to public service, and is now a senator for the beautiful state of Minnesota.
So perhaps it is not such a recent or momentary development to ascribe some stature to our humorists who are satirists. I think, though, we make a mistake when we want to take them literally. Jonathan Swift did not identify with his character Gulliver. We also make a mistake when we expect them to espouse particular positions, as if they represent institutions.
The point of satire is not to be literal but to paint pictures from those other perspectives that help us ask questions and make discoveries. This brand of comic is not a lecturer, but a facilitator. The value is in the inquiry and in the meaning that we make of it.
February 1st, 2010
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