I Am My Own

I am my own.  Before you stop reading this assuming it’s a piece written by a conceited blow-hard about to drum on about some phenomenal accomplishment, let me explain myself.  You see, there is a foundational truth in this statement that is profoundly humble.  In this statement the foundation of our universe exists and with it, the understanding that the millions of connections in my life and yours is what makes us each unique.  We are in fact, our own.

I am the product of the myriad of connections that created me and made me who I am.  Most of these connections I will never personally know of yet they all have contributed to who I am becoming.  The cushion I use for meditation contains within it the work of nature that grew the material, the hands that created the fabric, the dyes used to color it, the craftsman that made it, the people who shipped it to me, and the work of those I purchased it from.  From that cushion I have been inspired by the words of wisdom that came from my parents, loved ones, and the thoughts of others I have read over the years.  I am the product of my parents who came together through connection, who reared me and implanted within me a set of life values as well as those of grandparents and teachers that have inspired me.  My body is nourished by the food and water I consume.  Some of that water started as cloud vapors from far-away places thousands of miles from where I live.  I am my own not for what I have created, but because of my connection to anything and everything around me.

These words are my own but contain within them the seeds of knowledge and insight from the world I live in.  My Buddhist friend Greg has been an immense source of inspiration for me, yet his words are themselves the product of years of wisdom passed on to him by his masters in Burma who were also inspired by centuries of teaching.  Spiritual masters have long understood this truth and that is is why they can contemplate the wonder of the entire universe from the most simple of objects.  We are all connected.  I am my own yet at the same time I am not.

This simple truth though can be easily distorted and abused.  Take for instance the recent statement by President Obama that “you didn’t build that.”  What he stated was truth but used to make a very self-serving point.  His opponents then used those same words as a blunt instrument to make their own point.  In the end, the fundamental truth was lost in the noise of selfish chatter.  When Hilary Clinton made the point that “it takes a village” she spoke a truth yet those words were twisted into something negative.  It takes great humility to understand that we are never self-made people but we are unique because of the connections that converged in a way to create the person we are.

Even though the words I thoughtfully compose are my own at the same time they belong to everyone.  My thoughts and inspiration come from so many sources they could never be counted.  From the words passed on to me by family and friends to the innumerable authors whose works I have consumed and I’ll never personally meet, I acknowledge that they have all contributed in ways small and large to who I am.  When we realize just how intricate and essential these connections are we can begin to embrace with great humility that we are at the same time unique yet all the same. 

I am my own and I am grateful that each and every connection in my life has come together in such a beautiful way and expressed themselves through me.  I am my own because of each and every one of you.  Thank you.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action and connect with him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+.  Learn more by visiting www.connect2action.com.

Is Your Bulb Burnt Out?

I was reminded of a simple fact this morning while preparing to meditate.  As it was still dark, I turned on the light in our basement before going outside to get situated.  The socket still had an older incandescent bulb in it (the kind that are increasingly hard to find).  The thing about incandescent bulbs is when they are about to go out, they start to flicker, sometimes get really bright, go out briefly, then come back on.  It’s the telltale sign that bulb is about to burn out.  In my case, I found myself with moments of light interrupted by darkness as I tried to find my way around - we have lots of things to avoid in our basement and doing so in the dark can be like navigating an obstacle course.

It was great inspiration for my meditation because it reminded me of how we as individuals give off signs that we’re about to burn out.  All I have to do is look back on times when I burned myself completely out and there were flickers often followed by intense activity, more flickers, then suddenly the emotional and physical filament failed and my own bulb was finished.  The other thing I reflected on is how I typically respond to a bulb on the verge of failing.  Whenever I’ve had a bulb that started to flicker, I usually rechecked to make sure it was screwed in tight, jiggled it around, did anything I could to squeeze the last bit of life out of it before finally having to replace it.  Don’t we do the same thing to ourselves?

In reflecting on this, I realize that I often ignore the flicker that signals that I’m personally about to burn out.  I jiggle things around in my life, shift priorities, or try to convince myself to push a bit harder to finish something faster.  The end result is still the same; I burn myself out and have to do a reset with a fresh start.  When we ignore the flicker telling us we’re about to burn out, we usually end up in the dark when things burn out and we can’t see our way around.  Yet we do it to ourselves time and again believing we can squeeze just a little more juice out of things instead of taking the time to stop and do a replacement before the lights go completely out.

So next time you feel that flicker in your life telling you that your emotional, spiritual, or physical bulb is about to burn out, don’t ignore it.  Instead, respond to the signal and take the time to replace the failing part before you find yourself groping in the dark for a new bulb.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action and connect with him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google+.  Learn more by visiting www.connect2action.com.

Dory’s Lessons of Life

The regal tang fish known as Dory in the Disney film Finding Nemo is one of my most favorite movie characters but for perhaps reasons not so obvious.  You see Dory has a problem with memory and throughout the movie she is constantly rediscovering things as if for the first time.  It’s quite frustrating for her companion Marlin (the father clown fish), but for the most part, no one else in the movie seemed to care.  The characteristic that I love about Dory isn’t her seemingly oblivious persona, it’s that she is 100% present in every moment and embracing each situation with a spirit of curiosity and wonderment; she finds something great and positive in each new circumstance no matter how dire it may appear.

There are similarities between Dory and the character Lucy in the film 50 First Dates by Peter Segal.  In the Segal film, Lucy (Drew Barrymore) suffers from amnesia, the result of an accident.  Each morning she wakes up with a clean slate and no recollection of the day or even moments before.  Each day is like the start of a new journey and she rediscovers people, places, and situations as if she never had experienced them before; in fact, in her mind she had not.  You might believe that people in real life who suffer from such a condition are unfortunate, but their situation can teach us important lessons about living in the present.

The thing I adore about Dory is that she is unaffected by the myriad of challenges that are thrown in her way as she and her companion Marlin make a long and arduous trek across the ocean in search of Nemo.  In fact, most of the time Dory doesn’t recall why she’s on the journey in the first place or remember whom it is they are searching for.  In every moment, she sees possibilities instead of obstacles and she embraces each one with a touch of joy and fun.  In one scene, they are trapped in the mouth of a whale with no obvious means of escape.  As Marlin is panic-stricken at the prospect of becoming an appetizer, Dory is busily swimming back and worth in the surging water frolicking inside the whale’s mouth.  She is simply making the best of a potentially tragic situation and she’s having a great time doing it.

When we face challenges in our lives, we often (almost instinctively) jump to a potential future state filled with disaster, gloom, and doom.  We look at our situation and visualize nothing but the downside.  The world begins to dim and we feel increasingly trapped by the growing darkness and begin to imagine all the evils lurking around corners.  In this mental state, our creative thinking skills begin to shut down and we go into a defensive posture.  It’s times like these that I recall Dory and her uncanny ability to find the good (and fun) in her situation and her infectious joy to capitalize on the present moment.  Her spirit of curiosity and discovery enables her to take each situation at face value and explore more fully what lies before her.  She looked with intention for something good instead of imagining herself into panic and despair.  She never let a single moment go to waste regardless of her circumstances.  For me, Dory epitomizes the importance of presence and embracing life.  In fact, I keep a plastic figure of Dory in my office and it is a constant reminder to be living in the present moment and to have fun along the way.  The phrase in the movie I return to time and again is Dory singing joyfully "keep swimming, keep swimming" and it brings me back to center.

In the Segal movie, Lucy finds herself surrounded by people who love her despite her situation, and in the end, she finds herself married to the man who grew to embrace and appreciate the gift of who she truly is including her amnesia.  It reminds me that we don’t need to suffer amnesia to possess the spirit of discovery and wonder in each new moment.  We simply need to look with curiosity and openness - take each moment at face value willing to embrace it with a fresh set of eyes.  And when the darkness of imagining the worse starts to close in, it's time to remember to turn on the light before you can’t locate the switch, the light of discovery.

If it's been a while since you've seen either of these movies or if you never have, take the time to watch them.  There's life lessons in both and you don't have to look too hard to find them.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action, his blog at connect2action.blogspot.com, or follow him on Google+ at connect2action@gmail.com and Facebook at duane@connect2action.com.

Running Yourself out of Gas

One of our daughters is notorious for driving her car to the point of running out of gas.  Just the other night after coming by to visit and saying her goodbyes, she came back in the house to ask if the gas can in the garage had any fuel in it; she had run out of gas once again.  In our own lives, we often find ourselves running out of gas.  We work hard, running around without paying attention to the low fuel indicators our bodies are warning us of to the point that we find ourselves on empty.

I routinely coach people who have this habit of running themselves out of gas and I have to admit I used to function that way myself.  I remember several times growing up when I drove myself to the point of exhaustion, usually ending up sick and unable to function for days or even weeks.  Years ago, I nearly ruined my health and had a host of unexplained medical issues all due to stress and exhaustion.  Why do we keep doing this to ourselves?  I routinely remind people that ‘working yourself to death’ creates a real threat and I’m sure you’ve known others who have done precisely that – to the point of death itself.  It’s a vicious cycle we put ourselves in with very serious consequences.

I coach others that taking care of yourself (physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually) is not selfish; you cannot give to others what you don’t personally possess.  When your tank is empty, you’re going nowhere fast.  What’s worse is that when you recover, you often find yourself feeling guilty for having fallen down and leaving loved ones, family, friends, and co-workers to pick up the slack.  Often, you end up back into the cycle working even harder to make up for the lost time only to drain the tank once again and the process repeats itself.  Breaking this cycle isn’t easy once it’s ingrained in how you function, but it is a habit that must be broken.

Taking “me” time is a very loving and selfless act.  It enables you to keep the tank full enough and ready to serve those around you.  There will always be times when deadlines loom and you have to burn more fuel than you’re putting in, but stopping even in the midst of all that activity to keep the tank from going completely empty will enable you to sustain the pace long enough to fill back up later.  When I find myself in a time crunch, I’ve learned that sticking to my habits of meditation, reflective reading, and a certain amount of downtime, is where I find reservoirs of creativity and additional energy.  Sometimes it’s just enough to get me to my destination, but it ensures a safe arrival.  And I’ve had to periodically use the reserve tank to get me across the finish line, but I’ve learned to use that tank sparingly.

If you’ve ever run out of gas on the road, you know the sense of panic that begins to set in as you watch the needle move closer to the point of empty.  Several years ago on a road trip, that is precisely what happened to me and it seemed the more I watched the needle the faster it dropped.  When we know our bodies are running low on fuel yet the next fuel stop is nowhere in sight, we panic.  Panic drains the little fuel we have faster as we burn precious energy worrying about reaching our destination.  More times than not, it could have all been prevented by simply remembering to get off the highway long enough to fuel up.  But in our rush to arrive, we convince ourselves we’ll have enough to get there.  And when we find ourselves by the side of the road on empty, we ultimately end up arriving late, the very thing we were hoping to avoid.  The logic we used to arrive quickly falls apart and we end up missing the deadline because we’re stranded on the shoulder with no gas.  It all sounds illogical in retrospect, but we do it time and again.

So if you find yourself routinely on an empty tank or pushing the envelope it’s time to break the cycle.  Remember to keep enough fuel in the tank not only for those you serve, but more importantly for yourself.  The few moments ‘wasted’ pulling off the road to gas up will likely ensure you not only arrive on time, but you’ll be more relaxed and ready to go again because you won’t be suffering from the anxiety and panic of pushing your limits.  Having enough in your tank to sustain yourself is a great act of love, so remember to fill up on a regular basis.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action.

In Tough Times-Silence Is NOT Golden

Here's a piece by Eileen McDargh republished with her permission.  Learn more about Eileen below.

In Tough Times-Silence Is NOT Golden

In the face of this severe, take-no-prisoners economic downturn, far too many organizations are responding in knee-jerk reaction to the thought of holding all but the smallest of meetings. Training budgets are slashed. Employees hunker behind their desk, hoping that no one from HR can find them or else they’re huddled around a PDA, text messaging about possible layoff scenarios, pending mergers, or hiring freezes. Performance? Productivity?  I think not.

Now more than ever, managers at all levels of the organization need to do that which separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom: TALK!

Here’s why:

(1) In the absence of information, we connect the dots in the most pathological way possible.

(2) E-mail works fine for data but when emotions are involved, only face-to-face really carries the day

(3) There’s a huge benefit when people gather to share ideas, brainstorm new procedures, learn more about team members, have questions answered, or explore ways to streamline work loads.

(4) Smart companies will use this downtime to cross train, to coach for performance and career development, and involve employees in corporate decisions.

(5) Diverse perspectives are critical for innovation and these are best gleaned through conversation.

Bottom Line:  The organization will have a solid, committed employee base, poised to move into front position when the turnaround comes.

But this will only happen if TALK becomes the preferred vehicle of  communication.

Four Communication strategies to increase your Talk Quotient (TQ).

STRATEGY # 1: CONDUCT A TALKING STICK MEETING

A talking stick meeting allows everyone to hear a wide variety of ideas and inputs because each person who “holds the stick” is assured free speech, no reprisals, no humiliations, and no interruptions.   Many native American tribes used the stick as a way of allowing all voices to be heard. 

Talking Stick Meeting Checklist:

(1) Create a focus question to present to the group, assuring them that all are invited to speak, without interruption or humiliation.

(2) Form a real circle with everyone in the circle. This brings equality

(3) When everyone who wishes to has spoken, summarize the conversation and what you will do with the information. 

STRATEGY #2:  SEEK OUT THE “ORANGE BATONS”

If you happen to get a window seat on a plane that is coming into the terminal, look out and find the man or woman who is guiding a 737 aircraft (weighing over 90,710 pounds) into position. Those small orange batons wield plenty of authority in the moment.  And well they should.

You see, there’s a line painted on the tarmac to show exactly where the front wheel of the 737 MUST stop.  Otherwise, passengers at the gate literally would have a pilot in their laps. The problem:  the pilot sits too high to see that line. The pilot depends upon the “orange Batons” –those closest to the situation—to move the craft into position.

Everyone has orange batons in the workplace. The higher up an organization a manager sits, the more crucial is the conversation.  As customers, we’ve all been privy to disgruntled customer service reps who can’t help us because senior managers have created practices that tie their hands. Recently, I asked to speak to the support service personnel on a Delta Sky Miles Account. The agent informed me that even THEY can’t TALK to support personnel. “We can only use FAX and Courier service,” was the response.  I was angry and so was the agent.  “They” had made decisions without asking the Orange Batons what the ramifications might be.

STRATEGY #3  PAY ATTENTION TO LITTLE DAVIDS

When Patrick Harker, now the former Dean of Wharton School, was asked what made the critical difference in the school’s most successful fund-raising campaign ($425 million in six years), he replied that he made it a priority to engage the next generation of alumni leadership.

Listening to the voice of David is a tradition from the Middle Ages and the Benedictines. The abbot of a monastery made decisions after getting the input from all the monks, beginning with the youngest monk. Had the elders in the Old Testament listened to the young kid with the slingshot, the giant Goliath would have been dispatched quickly. Little David was right, but it took time for the tribe to understand that young (or new) did not mean “unskilled.”

Who are the newest and/or youngest on the team—your David's? It is often the newest members who ask the most discerning questions. They are not jaded by politics, the past, or protocol. Ask them for their opinions. Tell them that you expect them to teach you something at the end of three months. I guarantee that those employees will search high and wide to bring you innovation or, at the very least, an insight into some of your procedures, products, or services.

“Words of wisdom are spoken by children at least as often as scientists.” —James Newman, American Astronaut

STRATEGY #4 LAUGHTER LIFTS THE LOAD

In tough times, humor is an essential survival skill. Talk can also be funny. Not the sarcastic biting humor of put-downs and inside jokes, but rather the humor that can lighten a difficult situation or put something in perspective.

A travel agency was known for helping its agents get through difficult customers by awarding the Order of the SALMON. At the end of the week, agents would know which agent had the most challenging week with customers yet still managed to keep a positive interaction going.

With much fanfare, the agent explained the challenge and was urged to exaggerate and use as much humor as possible. She was then awarded a plastic salmon for her ability to SWIM UP STREAM. Being able to talk about the week, laugh at the difficulties, and be rewarded for staying calm helped generate both fun and connection within the office.

Laughter can put people at ease if it is used to acknowledge what everyone is thinking. I was asked to speak at a convention in which the main session room temperature hovered around 50 degrees. People were wrapped in tablecloths. By the end of the second day, it still had not warmed up.  When it was my turn to talk, I welcomed them by saying, “Welcome to the land of the frozen chosen.”

Gales of laughter and applause burst out. It made a point. The attendees were CHOSEN to be there. It was a privilege.

Humor also lets us divide the serious from the mundane.  Yes—the room was way too cold. But in the scheme of things, it was not as important as gathering to work out a new marketing strategy.  Humor can also point out the trite and the silly things we all do in work, relieve tension, and probably improve a process.  When one group acted out a very funny skit around the various voice mail doom loops a customer had to go through in order to get to a human being, everyone laughed…and the system changed in short order.

BREAK THE SILENCE

The last challenge will be pulling people away from their PDAs and text messaging to actually have a conversation. A number of organizations are experimenting with “topless” meetings—as in laptop-less meetings.  San Francisco design firm, Adaptive Path, has also put a crackdown on “crackberries”, as President Todd Wilkens calls them in his company-wide blog.  He claims that people now look each other in the eye, develop closer connections and meetings are more productive.

Productivity? Performance?   If the talk quotient is increase, you bet.  Talk might very well become the golden key.

(c) 2009, McDargh Communications.  Publication rights granted to all venues so long as article and by-line are reprinted intact and all links are made live.

Known as a powerful presenter and facilitator, Eileen McDargh, CSP, CPAE has been creating conversations that matter and connections that count since 1980.  Executive Excellence ranks her among the top 100 thought-leaders in leadership development. Her newest book, Gifts from the Mountain, received the 2008 Ben Franklin book award.  To hire Eileen to heal your company as a speaker, coach or retreat leader visit http://www.eileenmcdargh.com

Facing into the Wind

Most of us are familiar with the phrase facing into the wind.  It's used often in sailing.  Birds face into the wind to assure a safe landing and an easy takeoff.  Planes do the same thing.  In everyday life it's used to describe determination to embrace life's challenges by taking them straight on.  It seems that facing into the wind can not only describe a person's tenacity to embrace life's challenges, it can also be used to provide added lift when you're trying to get off the ground.

What a beautiful image to reflect on.  Instead of setting your face into a stiff wind and enduring the buffeting effects of its strength, it is the wind's energy that can be harnessed to give us that added lift when we're ready to take off.  I'm reminded of pictures of TV reporters standing in the strong winds of a hurricane with their feet planted firmly on the ground only to be tossed around like a rag doll by the sheer power that is unseen but clearly felt.  We can often feel that way when it seems that life is throwing its full force against us.  Our first tendency is to try and hide but even when we face it, we often dig our heels in just trying to withstand the assault.  With a powerful wind raging around us, we judge success by our ability to hold our ground believing that sooner or later the tempest will subside.  However, we can miss out on a great opportunity to use that energy to lift us from where we are and allow it to carry us above our current position.  From that higher vantage point, we often see things quite differently and the energy itself can be invigorating.  I personally love the feeling of a stiff breeze in my face especially if there's a chill in the air - how refreshing and energizing!

Instead, when life's angry winds begin to blow at us, think about how nature uses the wind to its advantage.  That wind in your face has as much energy to knock you over as it has to add lift under your wings to soar.  The wind is a mysterious thing.  It cannot itself be seen but its effects can, and where it comes from and where it goes is pure magic.  The wind is the magic of our universe sent to lift us, give us that extra boost and to take us to even greater heights.  So when life gifts you with a stiff breeze, face into it, spread your wings, and let it lift you instead of resisting it.  You'll be surprised at how high you can soar.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action.

Leaders Don’t Have to be Competent

In my blog on 31 July titled Cultivating Mindful Leaders (http://bit.ly/Qtf2MQ), I addressed the importance the quality of mindfulness should be in how you select and develop strong leaders.  In this post, I’d like to consider the issue of competence with respect to leadership.  As I mentioned in my earlier article, organizations often select or promote people into positions of leadership based largely on their technical competence.  Most companies have not established alternative means of rewarding technical competence and therefore promote people as a means of recognizing their performance.  Leadership responsibilities usually come with promotion for which many are not well prepared.  Through successive reward cycles, a highly competent individual in their field of expertise can find themselves in a senior position but without the requisite relationship skills to lead a team.  Sound familiar?  I’ve seen this situation repeated time and time again not only in hi-tech companies, but others as well.

Within the executive ranks, the selection process often considers someone whose specific technical skills matter less.  You may have been puzzled when a senior executive from a completely different industry is selected over highly competent internal candidates; this happens on a frequent basis.  Certainly, the new executive isn’t expected to know the industry, customers, or company at a level and depth of knowledge where they would be considered ‘competent’ from a technical perspective.  However, where these individuals are often competent is leading people and it’s their skills, mindfulness, and ability to motivate others that is sought.  Mindful leaders are aware of both their strengths and weaknesses and are unafraid to rely on others where their own competence is lacking; they don’t have to be technically competent, just aware enough to know where to get assistance and who to rely on.  Great leaders can make the transition not only across organizations, but industries and roles as well. 

There are many options you can consider to break the cycle of rewarding technical competence with leadership positions; people can be recognized through other financial and non-financial means that don’t automatically require promotion.  Depending on your company, cash rewards, stock grants or options, or other forms of reward (such as company sponsored travel) can be considered.  Non-financial incentives can (and should) include public recognition celebrations, employee of the month awards, prizes, or products (such as a tablet or laptop).  You should consider seeking employee input into the types of recognition they believe strikes the right balance.  The key point is that superior technical competence should not be the sole or even primary reason for selecting someone for a leadership role unless you’re fully prepared to surround them with the tools and resources for them to grow into the expectations you have for your leaders.  As I highlighted in my earlier blog, thrusting someone into a leadership position when they’re not ready will almost guarantee they grow into mediocre or ineffective managers causing more harm than good in the future.

And when you find yourself in a situation where you have a highly competent individual from a technical perspective who is equally prepared to be a mindful leader, you have a potential rock star on your hands.  When you can combine those two qualities in a single package, magic can happen.  Leadership is a people intensive responsibility and people in those positions have the highest potential to impact entire organizations either for the positive or the negative.  Selecting and growing leaders requires the highest degree of care and deliberation and should never be a matter of checking a technically ‘competent’ box.

Duane Grove is founder of Connect2Action, a strategy execution specialist at the intersection of employee engagement and executive leadership, igniting innovation as a lever to accelerate your growth.  Follow Duane on Twitter @connect2action.