Good Morning, World!  It’s Friday!

Being fully engaged, eyes wide open and actively listening for over 27 years in the consulting industry you tend to pick up a thing or two from the masters of their craft.  One such master was a Human Resource leader I had the pleasure to work with for a few years, Mr. Bruce Lake.  He believed in “the power of the question”.  In his spirit, I pose some thought provoking questions that are meant to make you ponder some pretty deep issues.  Pause between each question and take the time to think about what your answers would be.

• Have you ever wondered why you are here?
• What purpose were you meant for?
• What is your destiny?
• What have you been conditioned for?
• What is your cranial capacity?
• What is your nurturing capacity?
• How are you persevering with your God-given, albeit worldly-shaped, talents?
• Are you exhausted at the end of the day…in a good way…from doing the right thing-all day long?
• Do you wake before the alarm clock goes off…and are you smiling…or groaning?
• How do you cleanse your heart?
• How do you define yourself when someone asks who you are? (spend some extra time on this one)
• What makes you complete?
• Are you assuming noble intent with everyone you encounter?
• If you are a leader, are you doing everything imaginable to realize a single vision?
• Are you putting into your life what you hope to get out of it in order to achieve high-volume purpose?

Have a blessed weekend.

Good morning, World! It’s Friday!

I just heard a very practical, down-to-earth presentation on Jungian-based personality typification presented by Mr. Scott Schwefel with Discover Yourself based in the Twin Cities; foundational content and awesome delivery.

He engaged our group for 3+ hours with enthusiasm, energy and clear explanation how critical it is to know thyself. Self-awareness is so crucial in every aspect of what we do and how we relate at work, at home, in the community. The magic is how Insights group articulates complex and deep psychology in easily digestible, bite-size pieces. Concepts are then reinforced with visual aides that serve as regular and consistent reminders of who we are, how we should relate to others and how we prefer to be related with.

I’ve been fortunate to work with a variety of personality profile tools; DISC, MBTI, Enneagram to name a few. In my opinion, the Insights tool gets to the heart of the matter quickly and simply with a high expectation of comprehension and utilization.

We all know communication is a tricky, tricky topic. The “telephone game” is a quick reminder how we get details wrong regularly, even when prompted to pay close attention. We also know from previous studies, like Albert Mahrabian’s work that 55% of our communication is body language, 38% is tone of voice and a mere 7% comes from words. If it were easily understood and easily executed, we wouldn’t need so many forms like talking, writing, emailing, texting, tweeting, snap chatting, instagramming (is that a word?)…

Imagine if everyone you related with understood you better than they do today. Imagine if you better understood everyone you related to as well. With all of the stated barriers to effective communications, doesn’t it make sense to remove as many barriers as possible? It starts with knowing who you are so you can get out of your own way.

Have a blessed weekend!

Good Morning, World!  It’s Friday!

Based on last weeks subject, I thought I would further explore another subtle (sounding) difference between the root words humble and humiliate.

Dictionary.com calls out humbling as:

to lower in condition, importance, or dignity; abase.

The same source describes humiliating as:

to cause (a person) a painful loss of pride, self-respect, or dignity; mortify.

The difference here comes down to who is taking control of the humbling process.

To humble could be considered to lower yourself.

To humiliate is to lower someone else.

There will be pain, by your hand or another person (or situation).

In the book Launching a Leadership Revolution by Chris Brady and Orrin Woodward, the author believes that Leadership requires following three basic principles: Hunger, Honeable and Honorable.  Hunger is straightforward enough and my blog short enough to not bore you with my definition.  I would make the connection that Hone-ability is the quality of making oneself vulnerable to the lessons life is ready to teach you.  Honorable represents personal integrity and describes a person who has the ability to separate right from wrong and then act accordingly. 

I believe each of these principles require the quality of humility.  You can’t be hungry if you aren’t first self-aware enough to know there is so much more to know and always more room to grow.  You can’t consider vulnerability without some form of humbling experience.  Having and treating others with honor, always taking the high road regardless of what road others take, requires a sense of humility to understand one road from another.

Proceed with confident humility.

Have a blessed (and humble) weekend!   

Good Morning, World! It’s Friday!

The older I get, the more apparent it has become how the little things make such a tremendous difference. Not just from a ‘devil is in the details’ sort of way, but how we oversimplify the meaning or generalize what we hear when the subtle difference could lead us down an entirely different path or understanding. One degree of separation today continues to increase as time passes and you wind up on a different coast eventually.

A few examples that come to mind-

Struggling vs Suffering-In Still Alice, Julianne Moore’s character Dr. Alice Howland addresses the Alzheimer’s Association and tells them she’s NOT suffering…she’s struggling. No pain, just frustration.

Hurt vs Harm-Dr. Henry Cloud, in Necessary Endings does a nice job of describing the difference: “We all hurt sometimes in facing hard truths, but it makes us grow. It can be the source of huge growth. That is not harmful. Harm is when you damage someone. Facing reality is usually not a damaging experience, even though it can hurt.”

Wisdom vs Intelligence-separated by the ability to put experience into action as compared to having the capacity to learn. In both cases, the assumption is that the ability to learn is prominent but wisdom has already learned and intelligence is able to. Think of a gold-medal-winning Olympic swimmer compared to a young swimmer with water wings. Both are “strong” swimmers but one has proven them self and the other merely aspires. Time, and all that comes with it, separates them.

Active listening requires paying full attention to the subtleties. When you are uncertain what someone means, be courageous enough to ask for clarification. It could make a world of difference.

Have a blessed Memorial Day weekend!

One more (slightly inappropriate yet humorous) example would be
Love vs Lust- as I heard a comedian the other day…
Love is: getting ready to meet your girl friend’s Mom & Dad
Lust is: asking her, “Who’s your Daddy?”

Good morning, World!  It’s Friday!

I have  a long term friend who has, over the years, imparted his wisdom.  One of the recent conversations we had included content around the title of this post.  I’ve not personally tried to row a boat in the ocean.  I’ve tried paddle boarding and surfing (and even had a scare with rip tide while swimming in Hawaii a few years ago but that’s an entirely different post).

The moral of the post title is that there are times when rowing is beneficial and there are times when it is completely futile.  If the tide is coming in and you want to go out or the tide is going out and you want to come to shore, you are fighting gravity, and it typically wins.

We are talking about the discretionary efforts that, when timed appropriately, will advance the cause and move things forward, whether rowing a boat or pursuing an interest or solving a problem. However, just like a boat in the ocean, sometimes it is hard to get your bearings and you feel like you are drifting aimlessly so no matter where you row to, you might be advancing or hurting the overall goal or effort.  Sometimes, it’s better to put the oars down and … wait.

Depending on how you function and what motivates you, doing nothing may be easy or it may be nearly impossible.  No human I know wants to chase their tail.  At times, I may take a longer route form point A to point B in a larger metro even if the time is the same or even a little longer to avoid the traffic and avoid having to sit quietly and patiently wait.  It feels better to be moving uninhibited, even if it burns more resources.  The point with rowing a boat in the ocean is that you get tired quickly if you choose to ignore the obvious forces of the Earth screaming at you to stop rowing.

*Be situationally aware.
*Seek clarity about what you want to accomplish.
*Save your energy for the highest priorities and time the expenditure of such energy well, recognizing that it won’t always be when you want it to be.

Have a blessed weekend.

Good morning, World!  It’s Friday!

Art imitates life so in music or movies, we hear and see poignant moments that stick in our brain because we’ve lived a similar tune or vignette.

Have you heard the country song by Rodney Atkins, “When you’re going through hell…keep on going”?

Have you seen the movie ‘Draft Day’ where one of the more memorable lines capturing the essence of the movie was, “Sometimes the correct path is the tortured one.”

At those pivotal moments of hell or torture, how you want to react (fight or flight) is at the core of your brain. How you choose to react is a little more learned than instinctual. How you should react might be considered spiritual.

If everything comes easy, how do you know good from bad? Do you gain the same perspective shifting from better to good back to better as you do when shifting from good to bad back to good again?

If everything was easy, how could we appreciate grace?

If we did everything perfectly, how might we experience mercy?

Hint: life is not easy and we are not perfect but we can get duped into thinking so pretty easily.

My world (like everyone’s at some point along their journey) has been disrupted and my hallucinations of control over my destiny are now replaced with the reality that God has the wheel.

I’m blessed to have a growing number of people support me in my journey and at points where I may feel desperate, almost as if on cue, a new friend or old acquaintance has shared words of inspiration they cling to. A few examples include;

“A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.” Proverbs 16:9

“I can do all things through he who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
Philippians‬ ‭4‬:‭6

Have a blessed weekend (and a Happy Mother’s Day)!

Good morning, World! It’s Friday!

Last week while in Washington, D.C., I had the pleasure of hearing John Zumwalt, former President & CEO of PBS&J, an engineering consulting firm (now acquired) talk about leadership and it’s impact on company culture. The money line in his discussion was that “people follow a leader’s heart, they don’t follow a manager’s mind”.

This profound statement caused me to reflect on my professional experience and determine whether the statement was consistent with my currently held beliefs:

• I like the definition of culture that states it’s: an interlocking set of goals, roles, processes, values, communications practices, attitudes and assumptions.

• Some might assert about culture that “it is what it is” but I maintain that culture will devolve if neglected. Without a champion/leader(s) to set an aspirational tone, clarify, articulate and emphasize the goals, roles, processes, and values people should use as guides, as well as hold people accountable for a high level of professionalism when it comes to their communications practices, attitudes and assumptions…an organization’s culture will quickly become less than what it could be.

• The leader of an organization is afforded the opportunity to change the culture if given enough time, tools, and resources as well as trust and alignment of the majority of the company to affect it. Most experts who follow culture believe it takes five years or more to have sufficient influence to change the culture of a company in a positive and sustainable way. Obviously, the rate of adoption is different with every company because … every company culture is different. To make significant performance improvements, I’d offer that five years of patience and tolerance to overcome the resistance to change is a minimum.

• The phrase “culture eats strategy for breakfast” is attributed to Peter Drucker, the management and leadership guru. Having spent time and energy on multiple strategic plans, this statement bears paying attention to. The best laid plans … still have to pass the culture test.

So, yes, I agree with Mr. Zumwalt; “People follow a leader’s heart, they don’t follow a manager’s mind.”

Have a blessed weekend.

• What you become when the going gets tough…and you get going
• What you hear when you really, really wanted something as a child and your parents didn’t see the logic, need or sense of urgency.
• The last word I heard my dementia-stricken Father utter just days before he passed when I asked how he was feeling.
• What my Father was.  He subscribed to the “boy named Sue” child rearing philosophy shaped off of the old Johnny Cash song.
• What I’ve been told I’ve become over time despite a desire to prevent the inevitable jading that comes with time when you realize this world is broken.

Is this characteristic feared or revered?

Growing up, I’d say I feared the tough behaviors and took care to not trigger the potentially negative reactions of a tough parent.

Today, I believe we all revere tough behavior; tough love, tough discipline, tough action when the situation calls for it, with appropriate discretion and when it’s over, it’s over. Respond to antagonistic threats with a quickly escalated but measured (and well within reason) reaction to demonstrate it won’t be tolerated and just as quickly diffuse the situation by leading a diplomatic de escalation.

Good Morning, World!  It’s Friday!

I’ll call it the consultants mantra:  “There is no bigger fool than one who pays for advice and doesn’t take it.”

If you find yourself in need of answers and they aren’t readily available on google or ask or [pick your favorite search engine] you end up looking for a subject matter expert.  Often referred to as an advisor or consultant, they require remuneration for their services.

So, you get stumped, you break down and pay someone to solve a problem for you – you get a third party, unbiased perspective with years of experience helping others through the complexities that stumped you and…you don’t like the answer!

It may represent:
*conflict
*additional expense
*abandoning an expensive pursuit
but most likely it’s some form of discomfort. Now what?
-Seek another opinion?
-Fulfill the prediction of the phrase?
-Demonstrate the courage to follow through with what you started?

I’ve run into countless occasions where answers were only as good as the questions asked. To avoid the “fool” label, take more time formulating the question, problem or concern to the point it is easily understood and the answer, once crafted, can be widely accepted.

Abraham Lincoln said, “If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my axe.”
Preparation before solution implementation should be taken seriously and given appropriate time and attention.

Recommendation:
Gather your thoughts
Formulate your question, then simplify it
Research solution providers
Engage the most qualified (and likable) with similar values
Implement the recommended solution(s)

Have a blessed weekend.