What is the Greatest Challenge Facing Leaders?

At the blog, Linked 2 Leadership (see http://linked2leadership.com/2011/03/29/lbqa-greatest-challenge-today/) Marcia Witte asked the question, “What do you consider to be the greatest leadership challenge facing leaders today - and how best might they meet the challenge?”

There are some thoughtful answers from six different leadership gurus. Two write about engaging the teams they are leading by getting out of their offices and getting commitment from their follower-ship. Others write about dealing with challenges, skepticism, building trust and creating balance.

I believe the toughest challenge facing leaders today is “walking-your-talk.” A leader must be very clear about his or her values, what he or she stands for, what he or she will not stand for. I suggest writing this down and making this a dynamic document. Refer to this document regularly. Share this document with those whom you are leading and be willing to ask on a regular, ongoing basis, “How am I doing?” Get input from your mentor, your significant other and even your children! “Walking-your-talk” will impact and influence one’s follower-ship. As Kouzes and Posner point out in their best selling book, The Leadership Challenge, “modeling the way” has greater impact on an organization’s bottom-line than good customer service!

I was deeply saddened to read about Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel’s NCAA violation. I have referred to Tressel’s leadership video, Beyond the Sidelines: Lessons in Leadership from Coach Jim Tressel. While I forgive him for his bad behavior, I am wondering if his message can have the same impact on future viewers.

I am currently reading Jim Wallis best selling book, Rediscovering Values. Wallis challenges the reader not to waste this crisis and to re-examine what is really important. A moral recovery is more important than an economic recovery. This is a matter of the heart, not one’s pocketbook.

What are your values? What do you stand for? Are your values principled? Will you be lead by principled values at the time of crisis and conflict? It’s at the times of crisis and conflict where character is revealed, not developed!

Carrpe Diem! or Carpe diem?

Periodically I get an email like this one...

“I have heard Carrpe Diem before but looked it up to make sure, is it Carrpe Diem or Carpe Diem?”

If your last name is Carr, then it’s Carrpe Diem! I’ve been using the closing, “Carrpe Diem!” for my notes, letters and emails since the early ’90’s shortly after the movie Dead Poet’s Society came out. It was my wife’s idea to use Carrpe Diem! as the name for our sailboat. I liked the idea not only as the name of our sailboat but as a tag line and closing.

They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they're destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? - - Carpe - - hear it? - - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary. John Keating, Dead Poet’s Society, 1989

I’ll let you in on a secret. Carrpe Diem! is code. I use it many times a day. It is reminder to me to pause, connect, be present, push back, take a breath and ask myself some questions. Who I am being? How am I being experienced? What am I experiencing? Am I at a “thin place,” (a place between heaven and earth where I experience the Divine)?

While we live in the age of communication with exploding social media, we also live in the age of distraction. Carrpe Diem! is a reminder to focus. Carrpe Diem! is at the heart of my passion, experiential learning. It’s being present as you are challenged, but its also the interaction of those present, sharing, hearing, discovering, relating, and asking more questions.

“Carpe diem! Momento mori!”

“Seize the day” is only half of the story. “Momento mori - remember you shall die.” To me, that second part is just as important as the first. Recently, I was in the presence of my sister-in-law as she passed away from a terminal illness. Family members who gathered around her as she was leaving this earth, loved her to death. In this time, we were “seizing the day” as well as seizing a life rich in history, rich in connections, rich in love. Nothing else mattered. We were in the “thin place.”

Where do you need to carpe diem! When will you do it? How will you do it?

iHarm?

I saw this post on the wall of a Facebook connection...names have been changed to protect the iNnocent!

"When I grow up and have a lot of money, I am going to go to IHOP and talk on my iPhone and listen to my iPod while I play on my iPad." (Jane: "All of that stuff has nothing to do with IHOP." Carol: "I don't care. It all has an i in it and so it's awesome.")

It struck me that we have a whole lot of “i” going on and it may not be a good thing! Perhaps this is leading to iHarm? Is this another source for becoming a human doing?

There are the well know iMac, iTunes, iPad, iPod, iTouch, iWork (Apple has cornered the market on “i” names) iGoogle and ibooks. Then there are the other less well known and lesser used “i” words.

I have to believe all the “i” is leading to a lot of iGnorance, iLlusions and a lack of iMagination which negatively affect iNnovation, creativity and civil discourse.

I have an iDea. Lets stop consuming and start iShare. iShare means you will need to iUnplug and iFocus...listening more to actual conversation rather than texting and email. It also may mean being able to be alone with yourself to think, ponder, wonder rather than being stimulated. iFocus means iListen with not only my ears, but with undivided attention of my eyes and my heart. I have to believe this may lead us back to human beings rather than human doings.

You Can't Duct Tape Your Way to Success

If it breaks, get the duct tape. Duct tape seals, repairs, fastens and binds. While it may seem the universe is held together by duct tape, overuse may be a sign of trying to duct tape your way to success. Lots of duct tape literally and figuratively in your organization may be a sign of a lack of innovation and creativity leading to laziness. The greatest harm of duct tape is that it may cause poor right brain thinking, a deterrent to innovation!

Does your organization use “duct tape”?

How often does your organization use it?

Where does the “duct tape” seem to get used the most?

What would it take to put away the "duct tape" and get innovative?

Innovation and creativity have been at the heart of what has made America great. When you look at successful organizations, you find a nurturing culture, an inspiring vision and execution, as well as effective leadership and innovation.

How do you put down the “duct tape” and create an innovative culture?

Get out of your comfort zone! Stop saying, “we’ve always done it this way!” Put some duct tape on those lips! Stop being judgmental and get curious. Make “tell me more” a common response rather than, “that will never work.” To those whiners and nay-sayers, use the duct tape liberally!

Take a lesson from the world class Pike Place Fish Market. Learn to play at work! Researchers, Beeman and Subramaniam at Northwestern University recently found humor was the spark that allowed subjects to solve problems more quickly and creatively.

Take a look at the illustration. What do you see? Do you see a large block with a cubical hole in one corner? Do you see a small cube in the corner of a box? Do you see a small cube stuck on the outside of a larger box? There are three possibilities! Keep looking. Use your imagination. Learn to “see” the diagram in three different ways. Stretch your thinking and don’t believe everything you think!

Remember: Duct tape doesn’t fix critical thinking, lack of innovation or laziness!

The Kumbaya Effect

Many times in the opening of a “team building” workshop, I like to ask participants what they expect to happen. Many an extroverted workshop prisoner has said something having to do with Kumbaya as in, “I think we’ll be doing Kumbaya!”

Kumbaya is a popular campfire African-American spiritual song from the 1930s. The song is about compassion, spiritual unity and building community. While I’ve yet to hear a group I’ve facilitated sing it, the theme of Kumbaya does exist and many times comes through.

Closely associated with the expectation of Kumbayah is the group hug. I will admit to seeing participants hugging at the end of a workshop, a sign the seeds of community have sprouted. Appropriate human touch does go up. There is evidence that this has a profound positive affect on teams.

In a recent study, Tactile Communication, Cooperation and Performance: An Ethological Study of the NBA, authored by Michael Kraus, Cassey Huang and Dacher Keltner, printed in Emotion, October 2010, pages 745-748, points out evidence that physical touch improves performance!

Abstract:

Tactile communication, or physical touch, promotes cooperation between people, communicates distinct emotions, soothes in times of stress, and is used to make inferences of warmth and trust. Based on this conceptual analysis, we predicted that in group competition, physical touch would predict increases in both individual and group performance. In an ethological study, we coded the touch behavior of players from the National Basketball Association (NBA) during the 2008-2009 regular season. Consistent with hypotheses, early season touch predicted greater performance for individuals as well as teams later in the season. Additional analyses confirmed that touch predicted improved performance even after accounting for player status, preseason expectations, and early season performance. Moreover, coded cooperative behaviors between teammates explained the association between touch and team performance. Discussion focused on the contributions touch makes to cooperative groups and the potential implications for other group settings.

http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~keltner/publications/kraus.huang.keltner.2010.pdf

Touch is an important part of any experiential learning lab where participants are blindfolded like Vision Walk, Blind Man in a Black Room, Trust Walk, Blind Cube and Blind Square. Touch is important in spotting and keeping each other safe in experiential learning labs like Trust Leans, Trust Falls, Wild Woozy, Group Wall and Spider Web. A discussion about touch may come up in the debrief with questions around touch back in the workplace, the organization and in general.

I went back to review the video FISH! FISH! is the popular short film about the Pike Place Fish Market that went from being mediocre fish market to world class using four basic principles. I noticed a lot of touching in the video not just among team members but also with customers. Perhaps touch is the unwritten, unspoken, magical fifth principle of the FISH! Philosophy!

How do you want to be experienced in your touch?

How do others experience your touch?

Touch maybe your untapped strategic initiative!

To Cruise or Not to Cruise?

Over the past 15 years, I have had the opportunity to create and facilitate experiential learning workshops at all kinds of venues including outdoor education centers, retreat sites, spas, resorts, hotels and even at the Cincinnati Zoo and Great American Ballpark, home of the Cincinnati Reds. This past week I added, a cruise ship!

I was surprised when the client asked me to facilitate a 3-day leadership retreat for 15 participants aboard Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas, sailing out of Port Canaveral, FL.

This client had used cruise ships in past with success. The main reasons for this venue was cost and focus. Turns out that when you are out of port and on the sea, cell phone and internet communications are several dollars per minute! The room rate which included meals was very affordable, less than $300 per person for the whole trip.The meeting space was as nice as any I have used complete with all the technological hook-ups and great support from the ship’s staff. You would never know you were on aboard a ship with over 3,000 other people traveling at 20+ knots except for a slight roll when the ship was in rougher water.

On the third day, the ship dropped anchor off shore from Royal Caribbean’s private island, CocoCay, Bahamas. This allowed us to go ashore and take advantage of using the outdoors for a couple experiential learning labs. New scenery allowed for new opportunities to explore.

Participants were truly focused on the work at hand. No eyes dropping to laps to check Blackberrys. As a result, I was able to keep people on task. In the end, I believe the participants got a great value, a great learning experience and had fun. As a facilitator, I walked off board feeling very connected with the participants.

I not only would do this again, I’d recommend it to other clients!

Authentic Fakin' It

A buzzword around the training and education circles is about learning to be authentic. There are books, classes, programs and workshops on authentic leadership, authentic organizations, authentic beauty, authentic learning, authentic voice, authentic happiness, authentic brand to name a few. Authentic has lost its edge. It’s overused. The word may actually raise more questions and suspicion than define. It is also an abstract descriptor begging for more meaning. While the concept is noble, I wonder about the principle challenge to authenticity, fakin’ it. I think we have a whole lot of authentic fakin’ it going on!

I'm such a dubious soul,

And a walk in the garden

Wears me down.

Tangled in the fallen vines,

Pickin' up the punch lines,

I've just been fakin’ it,

Not really makin' it.

from Fakin’ It written by Paul Simon

Learning fakin’ it

Big boys don’t cry...in other words fakin’ it

Father telling his five year old daughter to apologize to the other little girl whom she hit, “and say it like you mean it!”... learn to fakin’ it

You can be anything you want to be...faked out.

There is one piece of pizza left and you say you don’t want it...you're fakin’ it.

Rude fakin’ it

Attending a meeting, sitting in church, sitting in the audience at your child’s school play...looking down at your Blackberry answering email... fakin’ it

Taking credit for other people’s work... fakin’ it

Fakin’ it for survival

You’re a drama queen... fakin’ it

Spending more than you make...fakin’ it...not really makin’ it

Treating the Bible like a software license...scroll down and hit “I AGREE”... fakin’ it

Unyielding, unlistening, determined certainty... I know what I believe, don’t confuse me thus believing everything you think... fakin’ it

Having an open door policy, but never in or is always busy... fakin’ it

Miscellaneous fakin’ it

Leaning against an expensive car that’s not yours... fakin’ it

Facebook ‘likes’...could be fakin’ it

Publicity stunts... fakin’ it

Flirting waitress or waiter... fakin’ it for the tip

Serious, unprincipled fakin’ it

Mark Sanford, Governor of South Carolina, said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail but went to Argentina to see his mistress... fakin’ it

John Edwards having an affair while appearing to support his wife who is fighting cancer... fakin’ it

A priest, pastor, counselor or other trusted person who preys on victims... fakin’ it

Before you add “authentic” to your resume, bio, introduction, Linkedin, or title of your next program check your fakin’ it factor. We all do some sort of fakin’ it. Fakin’ it is a coping mechanism. What degree are you fakin’ it? Does fakin’ it rule your life? Do you need to authentically work on your fakin’ it ?