Archives for category: Leadership

In Search of our Better Angels

August 17, 2017 //

As the events linked to Charlottesville continue to unfold, three references come to mind.

The first is a mural in one of the library reading rooms of the college I attended. It is titled An Epic of American Civilization. Painted between 1932-34 by Jose Clemente Orozco, the mural depicts the influence of indigenous people and European colonists on North America and the impact of wars and rapid industrialization on the human spirit. It is a dark picture, indeed, and reminds me of the deeply embedded roots of our human dispositions. Those of you with interest can learn more from a critical article written by Erin Harding in 1999.

The second source is Colin Woodard’s book American Nations in which he describes the motivations and distinctive values of the waves of those who came to populate this country. One of his conclusions is that the dominant values each group brought with them persist today and account for many of our regional differences.

The third source comes from the oft-referenced and aspirational words of Lincoln’s first inaugural (March 4, 1861) at the outbreak of the civil war.

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

As with many today, I wonder whether the better angels of our nature will prevail and how each of us can find the courage to bring forth the best in ourselves to meet the tasks at hand.

Categories Leadership, Overview, Performance, Personal Growth

Searching For Words

February 9, 2017 //

While running the rapids called Hell’s Half Mile on the Green River years ago, I was spilled into the depths of a hydraulic hole when our raft caught a rock. Trapped at the bottom, pummeled in the deafening roar of the turbulence and looking up at the light on the surface, my world slipped into slow motion.

The image returns today. Caught in the churn of current events, I struggle to keep my head from debilitating panic and my heart from unsustainable pounding. I am searching for words that will be a life line of perspective to pull me out of the hole and back into the raft.

Born under the sign of Libra, I am disposed to seek balance and harmony, especially when it comes to the scales of justice. The prophet Micah captures it best for me: “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

How does one “do” kindness in the face of injustice? When conflict and obstruction replace comity and compromise for the common good? When zero sum reigns supreme, requiring losers so that others may win? When truth is held hostage to alternative universes of spin? When fear fed vilification of “the other” replaces a welcoming light for the stranger?

How can one be true to self and speak truth to power? What are the words that will free our trapped longing to fill our depleted lungs, releasing us the way the Green River freed its captive decades ago?

How do we in this day live the prayer of St. Francis – Lord, make me an instrument of your Peace?

Categories Leadership, Performance, Personal Growth, Spirituality

Three Questions

December 8, 2016 //

Has life ever handed you set backs or conundrums? Has it surprised you with health issues? natural calamities? relationship dynamics? job loss? cultural or political shifts? In one of his most compelling teachings, Alan Seale suggests that your answers to three questions may help you find your way.

When something extraordinary rocks our world, it usually exceeds our ability to explain or justify. A line from Bob Dylan’s song Ballad of a Thin Man comes to mind: “…something is happening here but you don’t know what it is do you, Mr. Jones?”

The first question is: What wants to happen here? Alan encourages us to turn from fear to curiosity. Since our usual explanations are inadequate, what are some possibilities that we haven’t considered? The Chinese word for “crisis” combines the characters for “danger” and “opportunity.” It takes courage to believe there is opportunity on the other side of our vulnerability. However, unless we venture, we will never know.

Who is that asking me to be? Responding to new possibilities may force us either to reclaim basic values we have neglected or to embrace capacities that we have failed to acknowledge. Who are the parts of self that the crisis is calling into the center of our personal mandala?

What is that asking me to do? What are steps I can take to acknowledge that I am not in Kansas anymore? I may not be able to rewind a circumstance, but I do have the power to move toward the openings that new possibilities present. The actions need not be large. They need only be sustained.

For a more detailed exploration of the questions Alan poses, read his blog for this week.

Categories Coaching, Leadership, Personal Growth

“Through Our Cracked Imperfections”

December 1, 2016 //

Years ago, I participated in two retreats led by Parker Palmer. A writer and teacher of deep faith, abiding curiosity and gentle engagement, he is one of my inspirational guides.

After Leonard Cohen died last month, Parker posted a tribute to him which is excerpted below.

In LC’s spoken intro to “Anthem,” he talks about a world “plunged in darkness and chaos,” referring to the global economic meltdown of 2007-2008. Those words apply to our moment in history as much as they did back then, as does the now-famous chorus of “Anthem”:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

I think LC is saying, “Whatever you’re concerned about right now, don’t go looking for the very best thing to do, then give up when you can’t find it. Offer the world whatever gifts you possess — no matter how imperfect — gifts that might move us a little bit closer to love, truth, and justice. That’s how the light gets in, through our cracked imperfections.”

I’d add only this: it’s in our brokenness, not our illusions of “perfection,” that we connect most deeply with one another. So at this historical moment, when so many are feeling broken, we have a chance to renew our civic community – if we’re willing to forget our “perfect offering” and “ring the bells that still can ring.”

Ring them, listen for them, gather around them, and summon up an America where everyone belongs.

I invite you to set aside a few minutes to view the video of Cohen introducing and singing Anthem as he performed it live in London in 2008. And enjoy the accompanying photography.

Categories Inspiration, Leadership

The Dance of Dialogue

November 3, 2016 //

What is the difficult conversation you are avoiding and with whom – partner? friend? boss? self? No doubt, it wouldn’t be difficult if it didn’t matter, and you are postponing it because you want to get it right.

A recent trip to the dentist yielded a lot more than a new crown. He and I frequently converse before and after he attends to my teeth. In our most recent exchange we shared our mutual aversion with the current polarization in our country. As I left, he handed me a summary of a model based on the book Crucial Conversations.

Crucial conversations are those where stakes are high, opinions vary and emotions run strong. The key to handling them is to achieve and maintain dialogue. The hand out he gave me captured several key principles for guiding dialogue, but the following seem most applicable for the length of this post.

Be honest and clear about what you really want as a result of the conversation.

Help create and maintain a safe container for discourse. One tool in assessing safety is to be mindful of forms of silence (e.g. withdrawing or withholding meaning by understating or selectively sharing true opinions) and forms of violence (e.g. coercing the other to adopt your perspective and stereotyping something to dismiss it).

Listen actively to each other’s “stories” and explore with genuine curiosity each narrative without blame or judgment. (e.g. “I wonder what that is all about?”). Revise the narratives as appropriate.

Create a path of action forward based on mutually beneficial outcomes with specific benchmarks for accountability.

While there is a lot more to respectful dialogue than space here allows (click here for an outline of the book), we need not use that as an excuse for delaying important conversations.

Categories Leadership, Performance, Personal Growth, Relationships

Awakening to Privilege

October 20, 2016 //

Sitting on a remote New England hillside relishing the color of the season’s splendor, I am mindful of my privilege. I choose to live here, and I have the resources to live my choices.

I am grateful for all that surrounds me, beginning with the people and relationships that are most dear. At the same time, something inside nudges me toward a deeper awakening. Unlike the proverbial fish, presumably unconscious of the water it swims in, I seek greater awareness of my privilege, to what extent I “earned” it and what I owe for its exercise.

Responding to that nudge, I have taken a modest step and joined other leaders in our state in guided conversations about our privilege. Our focus is to better understand our advantages as white people and how those dynamics intersect with the realities of people of color.

The vexing dynamics of race will only amplify in the coming decades, as our country becomes a “minority” majority. There is no escaping this tide, even in a rural state like NH.

Each of us has choices in the face of difficult times. One of my morning readings provides me with grounding in the face of overwhelming challenges. May it center you as well for the choices you are making in your own life.

Empower me to be a bold participant, rather than a timid saint in waiting, in the difficult ordinariness of now; to exercise the authority of honesty, rather than to defer to power, or deceive to get it; to influence someone for justice, rather than impress anyone for gain; and, by grace, to find treasures of joy, or friendship, of peace hidden in the fields of the daily you give me to plow. – Ted Loder

Categories Leadership, Personal Growth, Relationships

The Work of the People

October 5, 2016 //

Feeling the fissures in our nation’s economic, cultural and political life, I was reminded this week of a word I learned in seminary. Most often associated with religion, the word also applies to our secular life. It calls me back to basics. Maybe it will for you too.

The word is liturgy. Most often associated with rituals of worship, it refers to the ceremonies a community uses to convey the content of its faith and express its gratitude. Using words, music, movement and symbols, liturgy dramatizes core beliefs and behavior.

The Greek roots of the word liturgy literally mean – the work of the people – which extends beyond religion to society as a whole. In a democracy “the work” involves several tasks.

First, there is being true to one’s individual values and beliefs. Humility involves an accurate self-assessment of both strengths and weaknesses and the courage to show up with personal integrity.

Then, there is the recognition that we belong to a larger whole that includes people who are different from us. Our lives are inextricably linked. One piece of our work is to understand our differences and seek to find common ground.

Finally, in a diverse society our discourse and commerce require us to treat each other with respect and fairness. One place that each of us can begin to make a difference is to treat each other more kindly. When we do, rather than appeal to our worst instincts, we elicit the best in each other, even if and as we may disagree.

Few sources convey the work of the people more simply and powerfully than the prophet Micah.

…and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (6:8)

Categories Leadership, Personal Growth, Relationships, Spirituality

Silver Days

July 21, 2016 //

It is early Sunday morning. The candle burns without a flicker in the still air of the room. Rain begins tapping gently on the skylight, its arrival a surprise. As the tempo increases the mantra of my meditation yields to the refrain of camp directors I once knew. It is a silver day.

Implicit in that message were two expectations. On the one hand, it informed campers and staff that most activities would be held indoors or special gear was needed for being outside. At a more sublime level the announcement was a pivot to channel any potential disappointment into opportunity.

There are many silver linings to a rainy day. On our hillside the thirsty garden drinks, as do the parched fields. The empty brook bed sings again accompanied by the chorus of forest leaves deflecting the downpour. The bird baths fill. Outdoor projects yield to unfinished work inside. It is a metaphor for turning inward, and for those of us who are introverts inward is home base!

The greatest lesson of a silver day is a reminder about the power of expectations. They shape our attitudes and effort which in turn influence the way we show up. A quote attributed to Henry Ford says it all: If you think you can or think you can’t – you’re right!

What does a rainy day say to you? Do your expectations shift? Do you anticipate a rainbow?

Categories Coaching, Leadership, Performance, Personal Growth

Choosing Our Attitudes

July 14, 2016 //

My head and heart ache from the latest killings and what they represent. I understand that our divisions arise from separate realities. The daily barrage of our endless political drama only fans the flames of difference, polarizing us in our disparities of race, culture, education, income and opportunity.

As my head grasps, my heart recoils. Does human life mean no more than pop-up characters on a screen easily dispatched with the press of a button? Are the lives of other creatures and the planet’s resources nothing more than a means to a better bottom line? Will we ever reach a point of a collective NO, in order to affirm a more just, loving and sustainable YES?

One of the only things we do control in life, whatever our circumstances, is our attitude. Only when we change our attitude will we modulate our words and actions. I have been encouraged by a growing number of citizen voices and those of a few leaders who are summoning the better angels in themselves and reaching out to others to do the same.

As each of us reflects on what we can do in our own circumstances, may these lines from a prayer for world peace inspire our attitude.

We pray for the power to be gentle: the strength to be forgiving; the patience to be understanding; and the endurance to accept the consequences of holding to what we believe to be right.

May we put our trust in the power of good to overcome evil and the power of love to overcome hatred. We pray for the vision to see and the faith to believe in a world emancipated from violence, a new world where fear shall no longer lead people to commit injustice, nor selfishness make them bring suffering to others.

Categories Leadership, Personal Growth

Begin Within

June 30, 2016 //

The aggression of our species spans a continuum of violence, including abuse by self and others, deceit, character assassination, environmental degradation, murders, suicide bombings and war. Those who would be peace makers must wonder where to begin.

A start is to recognize the ironies. Love is the aspiration at the heart of most world religions. It is the opposite of the fear that drives our aggression. And yet, despite the tenet of love, with words and deeds extremists kill those whose beliefs are different. A third paradox is that the warrior energy that drives us to destroy is the same power that motivates us to protect. It all depends on how and where we direct it.

Cultivating the peaceful warrior begins within. In The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, Sogyal Rinpoche introduces meditation practice with a formula. Return to the state of abiding calm through quieting the mind, even for a few minutes each day. Release the fear of loss of attachments, those relationships, material things and status which we take as our identity. Relax into the true nature of mind that gives us rest. The formula seems simple. The “doing” is more difficult.

While it stretches belief to think our actions can change hate-filled hearts around the globe, we can begin where we are. Peace within is the first step in transforming aggression and healing our divisions. The splash of our effort will send ripples across the ponds of our influence. How do we show up with those we love? With our neighbors? What are the messages we deliver to them and to those on our social media?

Love needs us all and calls us to be our better selves. What is one step you can take today to expand your peace making?