Tossing your hat over the wall

Friends,

In a speech delivered the day before he was assassinated, John F. Kennedy said: “This nation has tossed its cap over the wall of space, and we have no choice but to follow it.”* We all have our walls. Have you tossed your cap over any lately? Committed yourself to something that wouldn’t be easy? Last Monday one of my teammates and I each reclaimed caps we had tossed over walls back in January.

Our team decided back then that we would each set intimidating, life goals. We decided that the goal had to meet two criteria: it had to be important to us personally, and it had to make our stomachs do somersaults. The personal importance would ensure that the motivation was always ours, intrinsic, and not imposed. And the intimidating part meant that we knew we would have to stretch, face some anxiety, and likely learn something in the process. We thought that just having such goals would keep us more attuned to those personal dreams that can so easily get pushed to the background in the hurly burly of life’s demands. And we thought the somersaulting stomach part would ensure that we were growing and learning. So, we reasoned, we’d likely be more energized and engaged workers, too.

Gayleen began the year with a heart’s desire to work with sick children, but the desire had for all her life been suppressed by an aversion to seeing children in such turmoil, anxiety and pain. Last Saturday, after months of erecting scaffolding against that wall of fear — getting information about programs, for example, and signing up for training and certification — she leaped the wall. She spent 2-1/2 hours in the pediatric ward at Sparrow Hospital and committed to a year of Saturdays. Gayleen smiles a lot, but her smile was fuller for her accomplishment, knocking down a wall of fear and opening up a new space for herself and children in need.

My goal was less noble, but comparably scary: I vowed in 2006 to sing and play guitar in a public setting. Like Gayleen, I too built my scaffolding: I got a guitar teacher. I forced myself to play with friends. But while I was learning, the fearful side of me was “learning” that I was WAY less ready for prime time than I imagined. It seemed the more I learned, the more I realized I didn’t know, and the more I feared the incompetence others would see. I was totally committed to retrieving my cap. But I had no idea how, when, where, I might. I mean no idea!

Then 10 days ago a friend told me that she was attending a reception, and that her trio had been asked to sing. She told me I should play with them. I did. And it was great. Not my contribution to the music, but the feeling that I had eliminated an unnecessary limit in my life and opened a new field to explore. I also (re)learned a fundamental law of life. I offer it in closing to encourage you, especially if this column has inched you towards pursuing a goal. The lesson is expressed better by Julia Cameron than I could put it. She writes:

“In my experience, the universe falls in with worthy plans and most especially with festive and expansive ones. I have seldom conceived a delicious plan without being given the means to accomplish it. Understand that the what must come before the how. First, choose what you would do. The how usually falls into place of itself.”**

Toss your cap towards a worthy or festive place, and you really won’t have to do it on your own; instead, as Ms. Cameron says the universe will help you to

Lead with your best self,

Dan
* President John F. Kennedy, Remarks at the dedication of the Aerospace Medical Health, Center, San Antonio, Texas, November 21, 1963.
** Julie Cameron, The Artist’s Way, pp 66-67

The confidence to generate ownership

Friends,

Last week I wrote about how leaders sometimes have to “hold people’s feet to the fire.” I gave the example of not letting my son Jack quit our tennis game. And I promised this week to write about strategies to create more ownership of the work in those you lead. Josh Freedman, who edits a rich website on emotional intelligence called 6seconds.org, wrote back and put an exclamation point on why this ownership is so important. He wrote:

“Generally I find this ‘feet to the fire’ metaphor leads people to power struggle. For me the central issue of accountability is that no one can actually hold someone else accountable, and trying to do so generates a battle that’s about control, not about accountability. Real accountability only comes from within.”

As you think about those whose feet you are holding to the fire most frequently, I’ll bet you do find yourself in power struggles where they actively or passively rebel, you try to push them, and they rebel further, in a frustrating downward cycle. I’d bet these are the same people in whom you’d love to evoke a sense of accountability. You know that if they possess that sense of ownership or accountability they can take on the hard work required to meet the needs of the team and achieve a great sense of personal success. So, if you find that you are frequently in the position of using your sticks and carrots to keep people in the game, you might consider the following strategy.

The primary strategy demands an awful lot — not of them, but — of you! You have to believe that with a push, they will be able to pedal that bike or write that brief, figure out that spreadsheet or hit their sales goals. If you don’t believe it, they will sense that, and the prophecy will often be self-fulfilling. There are a thousand ways your doubt can be written on your face, not quite concealed in your tone, or apparent in your over-management.

I am often struck that even with people at high levels — of salary, power, experience, etc. — self doubt frequently looms large. Even when working with these folks, I consider it one of my first and continuing jobs to keep seeing them succeeding — seeing it in my mind, in order to help bring about success in reality. And if it’s true of the high achievers, then what of those who aren’t on any one’s all star roster? If they don’t believe in themselves, and I don’t believe in them, should I be surprised that I’m constantly trying to drag them into the game?

My faith in them as leader is absolutely necessary, the sine qua non. Admittedly, it is necessary but not sufficient. Next week I will talk about other ways to stimulate that sense of ownership. But, as this is the key strategy, and it’s subtle, and we’re seldom taught how important it is, I want to leave it with you as the question to ask about the people you find you are most often needing to control and whose feet you are frequently holding to the fire: Do I fully believe in them and their ability?

You’ve got to have faith to…

Lead with your best self,

Dan

Holding their feet to the fire

Friends,

I held my son’s feet to the fire. Four of us had ridden bikes to play tennis, and Jack for his own reasons quickly tired of the game and wanted to quit. I wouldn’t let him go home. I told him it wasn’t good team play, and I also wanted to teach him about perseverance. Life like tennis demands it. I challenged him to get back in the game, but as with many everyday leadership decisions, I couldn’t know for sure I was doing the right thing. The parental environment, like the leadership environment generally, doesn’t come with a neon sign that blinks between “Challenge” and “Accept” to direct your approach when your kids resist challenge or change.

Leading adults sometimes means holding their feet to the fire, too. Two questions arise: When was the last time you had that uneasy feeling of challenging someone’s behavior when it did not meet their commitments or your standards? Maybe you stood up to them when they were telling you “it’s good enough,” or “we just don’t have the time,” or maybe when they were just avoiding the painful reality that times had changed and required more or different effort. As Kouzes and Posner write, “Only challenge produces the opportunity for greatness.” And sometimes leaders need to present that challenge. They have to help people see that yesterday’s effort or strategy may not be enough for today. In highly changing and competitive environments leaders should find themselves offering challenges almost every day.

As you challenge others a second question arises: Who owns the challenge? The great leadership trick of course is helping them to own it as theirs. If Jack grudgingly got back in the game, but took away from the experience that his dad was “mean” for no reason, then what would I have really accomplished? My challenge was not just to get him to play, to go through the motions, but somehow to grasp his “work:” to choose to be a team player and not give up when he feels frustrated (and hopefully even to have fun despite inevitably frustrating mistakes). This is the deeper level of leading: not striving for someone’s compliance but instead stimulating their sense of ownership, pride, and confidence.

It takes some courage to challenge people to exert great effort. And then it takes constant commitment to their ability to take ownership of the challenge and thus gain long term success. In the coming weeks, I’ll offer some strategies on how to develop that sense of ownership, as you,

Lead with your best self,

Dan

The loving work of the leader-creator

Friends,

Robert Fritz writes that “Creators love their creations before the creations exist.”*

Poets, painters, conductors, he says, love the piece before it’s ever finished, read, or performed. It is true also of the creator we call “leader.” They (you?) love what they are out to create, long before it is there. Marianne lights up when she talks about her project to end poverty. Jim gets fired up talking about an economy that has become diversified. John can’t stop thinking about doubling the number of college graduates. Linda’s undaunted by challenges as she sculpts a world that celebrates diversity.

Family leaders are impassioned about their image of happy and growing children. Others stay up writing sermons because they are on fire with the idea of their church becoming a community that changes the world. Still others see the possibilities of breakthroughs in plant resistance or fuel efficiency or a Detroit river teeming with fish species that have returned home. Each loves the creation long before the work can be clearly seen let alone completed.

Some can’t stop talking about the creation they love and live to create. Others burn more quietly but no less insistently.

Alas, many of us forget that we came to work, whether in an office, shop, hospital or home, to do the loving work of the leader-creator. What is the creation you love? That you wish to bring into being? That’s worth the frustration of false starts, dead ends, and seemingly endless approaches?

The world is an awesome workshop in which to lead and so create. There are countless groups full of the potential to make something magnificent, and they are looking for someone to really love the challenge of creating with them. You’ve got to love your creation even before it exists, if you want to.

Lead with your best self,

Dan
* Robert Fritz, Your Life as Art, (Vermont: Newfane Press, 2003), p. 33.