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31
March 2009 |
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We must use time creatively. . . and
forever
realize that the time is always ripe to do right.
Martin Luther King, Jr. |
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As
the nightingale instinctively flees from
the sound of a hawk, so does the beauty
of humility vanish in the presence of pride.
William
A. Ward |
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All
noise is waste. So cultivate quietness
in your speech, in your thoughts, in your
emotions. Speak habitually low. Wait for
attention and then you low words will be charged with
dynamite.
Elbert
Hubbard
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How
Do You Get Back Up? A Counterintuitive Approach to
Thriving in Challenging Times
Steve Farber
A
while back, I received a distressed email from Ken, a
young manager at a high-tech company.
Ken and I had never met, but he had read my first two
books and had done his best to apply the ideas and
practices of Extreme Leadership to the way he'd led his
team. To their culture, their work ethic, their
camaraderie. When necessary, Ken told me, they would
band together and work hard -- 10 to 20 hours a day at
times -- to solve a problem or meet a pressing need.
Ken's wife would cook food for everyone and bring it to
the office. They felt like a family, he said,
committed to doing great work and devoted to one another's
success. No one ever complained, least of all Ken.
And then something happened. A downturn, a re-org, a
shift in the management structure -- we all know the
drill. Ken still had a job, but his position was
eliminated. New management full of old ideas came in
to oversee the department's function and the emotional
fibers that connected Ken's team to each other and to
their work unraveled.
"Now," Ken wrote, "for the last four weeks
I sat at my cubicle, web surfing for eight hours a day at
the same company where I once worked 39 hours straight
with my team to make things right, never going home.
"I'm not a quitter; I don't want to leave. But
-- just or unjust -- I feel stripped of everything we've
done," he said. "So the advice I'm looking
for is this:
"How do you get back up?"
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I
admit that I was loath to hand out that kind of
potentially life-altering advice to someone I'd
never met. After all, I had only the
sketchiest of details about Ken's situation, and it
seemed way too presumptuous to represent myself as
the all-knowing answer man. But I did have an
idea for him, and I really felt that it could make a
huge, positive difference in Ken's life -- and in
the life of those he worked with.
And it wasn't the kind of advice you'd expect.
It's already become a cliché to say that we live in
unprecedented, challenging times. We all know
it. But the truth is, the world of work is
always challenging. That's why they call it
"work."
No matter the industry, market, or type of company
you work in, you've had to deal with some
combination of the classic work-place obstacles,
issues, and barriers to a satisfying, fulfilling
experience.
At some time or another, for example, you've
reported to bosses or people in positions of
authority who were self-centered at best, and
idiotically egotistical at worst. They took
all the credit and none of the blame and could care
less whether or not you succeeded or failed.
Or worse, they preferred that you'd fail, and took
great pleasure in your struggles.
Or perhaps you worked in a company that, even though
populated by terrific human beings, was so obsessed
with the bottom line and shareholder value that they
made executive, strategic decisions that compromised
the employees' ability to serve the customer.
And the customers, therefore, exited in droves.
You may have been in an environment that was
hyper-competitive to the point of paranoid,
risk-averse to the point of stifling, or so
political that it made you consider running for
local office just to get some relief.
We've all experienced some combination of these
themes with varying levels of intensity. And
we've all spent some amount of time and energy
navigating our way through the personal challenges
that the organizational pitfalls present. It's
just the price we pay for hanging out with other
human beings.
Now, add to that the current, sucking implosion in
the economy, and it's easy to see why, with all our
efforts to be positive, productive leaders, we still
get knocked down from time to time. Sometimes
way down.
The problem is in the way we typically deal:
Our knee-jerk reaction in times of crisis is to hold
on tighter, to be more cautious in our actions, and
more protective of our resources. We think
that our way out -- or up -- will come by virtue of
shoring up and hoarding what we have.
There is, however, a much better, far more powerful
alternative. A counterintuitive course of
action based on this ageless reality of true
leadership:
Your own greatness as a leader (or in just about
any other role you take on, for that matter) lies,
paradoxically, in your ability to cause others to be
greater than yourself.
Said another way, your (and my) best way out of a
challenge or crisis is not to focus on your own
peril or rut, but, instead, to reach out and try to
boost someone else over your head.
The idea should sound familiar. It's really
just a variation on the "do unto others"
sentiment of the Golden Rule, a philosophy that
exists in virtually all religions, schools of
thought, and philosophies on the planet. And
in none of those versions -- not one -- will you
find a footnote saying, "Does not apply Monday
through Friday between the hours of 9 to 5 or any
time you find yourself in a jam."
So the solution I offered to Ken was this:
Pick someone at work to invest in, with the intent
of making that person greater than you are. Be
a coach, guide, or mentor in the truest, most
personal sense of the words by choosing someone to
be your GTY (Greater Than Yourself) project, and see
what that does to your own predicament, your own
state of mind.
Maybe it was out of desperation, but as surprised as
he was by the curve ball I'd thrown him, Ken took my
advice and agreed to the challenge.
Two weeks later, Ken wrote to say that he'd thought
deeply about our conversation and had come to
realize that before he could lift someone else up by
sharing his knowledge and experience, he needed to
be sure that he had learned the right lessons from
the recent team trauma. So he'd met with his
boss, and asked for feedback on how he could have
acted differently, what he may have done to
contribute to the problem, and how he could be a
better leader in the future. The "30-minute
meeting turned into a two-hour confessional,"
said Ken, which resulted in him learning some hard,
"gold lessons" about himself.
"Now," he continued, "I've already
started to work with a tech on my team who wants to
be a manager. And I'm taking a vow," he
said, "to make the people around me better --
as I continue to grow myself. I'm going to
teach my children about this, too." Ken,
it seems, has gotten his energy back, and he's well
on his way to getting back up.
We're all human, just like Ken. And just like
him, we all get bashed down from time to time.
So, the next time that happens to you, resist the
temptation to pull yourself up by the proverbial
bootstraps, and reach out to pull someone else up,
instead. Go find someone to be your GTY
project.
Come to think of it, why wait?
©2009
Steve Farber. Steve Farber, author of Greater
Than Yourself: The Ultimate Lesson of True
Leadership, the president of Extreme Leadership,
is a leadership consultant and speaker, and the
author of the national bestseller The Radical
Leap, and The Radical Edge. He lives in
San Diego, California.
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Raising
someone up does not
reduce your stature—in
fact, it exalts you in ways
you have to experience
to believe. Greater Than
Yourself shows how you
can begin improving the world
by giving of yourself. It’s
a wonderful message wrapped
in a highly entertaining,
well-written story.”
--Ken Blanchard |
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Eyes
Wide Open
tom walsh
Mush the Bag
A friend just gave me a
bag of Amish friendship bread batter. I love the
bread, but this is the first time that anyone has given
me the batter to start the process of making some
myself. The bag comes complete with directions,
which for the first five days or so are pretty simple:
Day Two: Mush the
bag.
Day Three: Mush the bag.
Day Four: Mush the bag.
On day five I have to
add flour and sugar and milk--and then I have to mush
the bag. Then for the next four days, all I do
again is mush the bag.
Now I guess I could
wonder about whether or not "mush" is even a
word, but I really don't care--I like the word. It
sounds cool and it's very expressive, so it really
doesn't matter what the dictionary people say about it.
What I really like,
though, is the concept of mushing the bag. For
most of the days that I have this mix, I don't do
anything except give it a bit of a massage so that its
ingredients stay alive and healthy and all mixed
up. Except for a few minutes a day--if even that
much--I just leave the bag alone to do its thing.
And at the end of the allotted time period, I end up
with a mixture from which I'm able to create a
wonderfully tasty loaf of bread, plus get four more bags
of the starter batter which I can share with friends.
I've often wished that
people would be so patient with me, leaving me alone to
do my thing, perhaps mushing my bag now and then with a
little bit of encouragement or constructive
criticism. In fact, the most effective teachers
that I've ever worked with have been those who have
allowed me to do my work on my own and learn from both
the process and the results.
I know many people who
have others in their lives who aren't willing to let
them be. They have to try to control everything
they do, and this happens more often with kids than with
adults. Their parents decide what classes they'll
take, what jobs they'll take, what they do with their
free time, which sports they'll pursue--all sorts of
things that are much more along the lines of intruding
rather than helping.
I also see this in
relationships, when one partner decides that he or she
knows what's best for the other partner. Through
all sorts of techniques, including manipulation,
threats, direct commands, blackmail, and others, the one
partner tries to control the other into becoming the
person that he or she wants that partner to be.
It's sad, and it's sick.
What would life be like
if all of us were content simply to mush the bag for a
few minutes each day, finding out what's going on in
another person's life and then giving a bit of
constructive criticism and encouragement? We don't
have to be involved in another's life all day, every
day, in order to be a good friend or a helpful
person. Sometimes the best thing that we can do is
to stand back and let things be, allowing the other
person to become a wonderful mixture from which springs
great things--and truly unique things if the person has
been allowed to become him or herself.
We don't need the
constant intrusion of others if we're going to be
successful people, if we're going to become the
wonderful people that we were meant to be, living on
this wonderful planet of ours. Nor do we need to
intrude into the lives of others to be good friends or
helpful people. Usually the best thing that we can
do is to stand aside and allow people to do their own
things, coming into their lives to bring some positive
reinforcement, or even advice when it's asked for.
If we do more than mush
the bag a little bit each day, the bread will not turn
out the way it's supposed to turn out. If we
intrude into the lives of others, we're not really
helping, are we? Instead, we're trying to control
and dominate and manipulate, and that never can help the
person to become what he or she is meant to be, since
our goal in intruding is to make the person into what we
want him or her to be.
So just mush the bread
a little today. For the rest of the day, let the
person grow and learn and develop just as that person is
meant to grow and learn and develop. What a gift
to the world you'll be contributing to then, by not
doing anything at all!
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The
Paradoxical Commandments
Kent M. Keith
People
are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish
ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and
true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be
shot down by the smallest men and women with the
smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed
overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do
help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked
in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.
©
Copyright Kent M. Keith 1968, renewed 2001; www.paradoxicalcommandments.com
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Living
Life Fully, the e-zine
exists to try to provide for visitors of the world wide web a
place
of growth, peace, inspiration, and encouragement. Our
articles
are presented as thoughts of the authors--by no means do
we
mean to present them as ways that anyone has to live
life. Take
from them what you will, and disagree with
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Your
mission statement becomes your
constitution, the solid expression of your vision
and values. It becomes the criterion by which
you measure everything else in your life. . . . Writing or
reviewing a mission statement changes you because it
forces you to think through your priorities deeply,
carefully, and to align your behavior with your beliefs.
Stephen
Covey |
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Practice
Being like a Child
Jim Rohn
Remember
the master teacher once said 2000 years ago,
"Unless you can become like little children, your
chances are zero; you haven't got a prayer."
A major consideration for adults.
Be like children and remember there are four ways to be
more like a child no matter how old you get. . .
1) Curiosity - Be curious; childish
curiosity. Learn to be curious like a child.
What will kids do if they want to know something bad
enough? You’re right. They will bug
you. Kids can ask a million questions. You
think they're through. They've got another
million. They will keep plaguing you. They
can drive you right to the brink.
Also, kids use their curiosity to learn. Have you
ever noticed that while adults are stepping on ants,
children are studying them? A child's curiosity is
what helps them to reach, learn and grow.
2) Excitement - Learn to get excited like a child.
There is nothing that has more magic than childish
excitement. So excited you hate to go to bed at
night. Can't wait to get up in the morning.
So excited that you're about to explode. How can
anyone resist that kind of childish magic? Now,
once in awhile I meet someone who says, "Well, I'm
a little too mature for all that childish
excitement." Isn't that pitiful? You've
got to weep for these kinds of people. All I've
got to say is, "If you’re too old to get excited,
you're old." Don't get that old.
3) Faith - Faith like a child. Faith is
childish. How else would you describe it?
Some people say, "Let's be adult about
it." Oh no. No. Adults too often
have a tendency to be overly skeptical. Some
adults even have a tendency to be cynical. Adults
say, "Yeah. I've heard that old positive line
before. It will be a long day in June before I
fall for that positive line. You've got to prove
to me it's any good." See, that's adult, but
kids aren't that way. Kids think you can get
anything. They are really funny. You tell
kids, "We're going to have three swimming
pools." And they say, "Yeah.
Three. One each. Stay out of my swimming
pool." See, they start dividing them up right
away, but adults are not like that. Adults say,
"Three swimming pools? You're out of your
mind. Most people don't even have one swimming
pool. You'll be lucky to get a tub in the back
yard." You notice the difference? No
wonder the master teacher said, "Unless you can
become like little children, your chances, they're
skinny."
4) Trust - Trust is a childish virtue, but it has great
merit. Have you heard the expression "sleep
like a baby?" That's it. Childish
trust. After you’ve gotten an A+ for the day,
leave it in somebody else's hands.
Curiosity, excitement, faith and trust. Wow, what
a powerful combination to bring (back) into our lives.
Reproduced with permission from the Jim Rohn Weekly E-zine.
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and movies that inspire us to live our lives more fully, and
Amazon
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What we are contributes much
more to
our happiness than what
we have. . . .What we are in
ourselves, what accompanies
us
when
we are alone, what no one
can give us or take
away, is
obviously
more essential to us
than everything we have in the
way of
possessions, or even what
we may be
in the eyes of the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer
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A
Lesson in Patience
Nikos Kazantzakis
I remembered one morning when I
discovered a cocoon in the bark of a tree, just as the
butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to
come out. I waited a while, but it was too long appearing
and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed on it to
warm it. I warmed it as quickly as I could and the
miracle began to happen before my eyes, faster than life. The case opened, the butterfly started slowly crawling
out and I shall never forget my horror when I saw how its
wings were folded back and crumpled; the wretched
butterfly tried with its whole trembling body to unfold
them. Bending over it, I tried to help it with my breath. In vain.
It needed to be hatched out patiently and the
unfolding of the wings should be a gradual process in the
sun. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the
butterfly to appear, all crumpled, before its time. It
struggled desperately and, a few seconds later, died in
the palm of my hand.
That little body is, I do believe, the greatest weight I
have on my conscience. For I realize today that it is a
mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should
not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should
confidently obey the eternal rhythm. |
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I
believe that the very purpose of
our life is to seek happiness. That
is clear. Whether one believes in
religion or not, whether one
believes in this religion or
that religion, we all are
seeking something better
in life. So, I think, the very motion
of our life is towards happiness.
the
Dalai
Lama
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