Leadership and Compassion

Albert Einstein once said, "A human being is part of the whole called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affections for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

I know a lot of leaders that would consider this perspective a little too "touchy feely." Leaders who believe that leadership comes from thinking and acting. Compassion to these leaders means you are soft, weak and leaving yourself vulnerable to attack. That being tough, stoic, and bottom line focused is what it's all about. All of those things are critical to effective leadership.

But given the events since the beginning of this century that have been driven by bottom line orientation, greed, and speed this sure seems like an ideal time to revisit leadership that is grounded in compassion. Our culture has become one of looking for what is wrong in situations, people, ideas and opinions. What if for just one month each of us shifted our perspective to considering with curiosity, looking for what's right and believing that the other person's intentions are good?

Do we stop holding ourselves and others accountable? Absolutely not! In fact when we shift from judgment to compassion accountability levels will increase. Here's an example. Tara is a middle manager with a team of twelve people. Joe is consistently missing his deadlines not a typical habit for him. With a filter of judgment, Tara might say, "What's wrong with Joe? He's slipping. I'm going to need to come down hard on him to get him back on track. If that doesn't work, it will reflect badly on his next performance review."

Now consider what happens when Tara shifts to a filter of curiosiyt and compassion? Tara might think, "I wonder what's going on with Joe. He has a great track record, but he has been missing his commitments. I'm going to sit down with him, see what's going on and work with him to develop a plan of action to support his getting back on track."

Wow! What a difference in the energy that is expended, the toxic stress that is avoided, and the likelihood that Joe will get things back on track. And the bonus? Tara will have an even more loyal employee that she did before.

Seriously? Isn't that what leadership is all about?

Everyday Leadership

Here's a compelling possibility. What if every day leaders make as big a difference as well known leaders. Have you ever considered what you might have in common with admired leaders who seem larger than life? Are you a person of strong ethics and integrity? Then you may be an every day Warren Buffet, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Do you find that you are open to considering unconventional ideas? This is the attribute that made Andy Grove, CEO of Intel Corporation an industry leader. If you are the kind of every day leader who is able to follow your instincts and strive at all times to just be yourself. Then, you might be like Oprah Winfrey, CEO of Harpo, Inc.

Please don't be confused. These people have done amazing things in the world and have in some way impacted every one of us. They are to be admired. Even more, they are to be learned from. Is there an attribute of a great leader that really draws you in? What is that attribute? Is it Courage? Integrity? Intelligence? Perspective?. If you can see it in them. You have it in you. That's the beauty of it. Whatever you admire about someone else is an attribute you possess. It may be hidden or not yet developed, but if you look very closely and observe your actions in every day life, you will find that you act out of these attributes.

What disturbs me today is how so many of us are giving our power and our identity up to the seemingly famous. Mostly Hollywood famous. And yet, there are so many moments in each of our days where we are demonstrating uncommon courage, acting on out-of-the-box ideas, trusting our guts and simply trying to be our best.

If at the end of each day we could stop and acknowledge our important acts of everyday leadership, we could look closer to home for our self worth and give less of our power away to any one else.

NOPE YOU CAN'T HAVE IT ALL

Sorry ladies, I know we've been told for decades that we can have it all but it's not true. Guys, you either, not true. Here's my evidence. I watched many corporate executives climb the ladder of success just to have their relationships crumble, their children spin out of control, or their health take a nosedive. Many female colleagues opted out of the climb in an effort to "balance" it all, children, husband, and career and still felt unsuccessful.

I remember a conversation with the design manager of a major microprocessor back in the 90's. At the time there was a lot of pressure to get products into manufacturing in half the time with half the people due to intense competition. I asked him how was going to pull it off. He said, "It's all about making the best trade-offs." In order to make the best possible product it would take too many resources and too much time. Late to market with a great product is failure. On time to market with an inferior product is less than optimal. Determining the trade-offs that optimize quality, features, time and resources is the real balancing act. It was an ongoing process during the then two year design periods to determine those trade-offs.

So what if we redefined life balance to mean "Making Optimal Trade-Offs". In this way, it's not about believing you can do or have it all and then feeling like a failure when you fall short. It's about making conscious trade-offs to have the best possible life.

Here's the other thing. One person's trade-off is another person's formula for disaster. So all those well meaning people who give you advice about how to create balance in your life really don't have a clue what you need. YOU are the only person who knows what you need. And in order to figure that out we have to quit listening to all the experts in our lives and listen to our own voice. No, not the voice in your head that sounds like an out of touch grown up. The one at your core that is always whispering to you what you need. Intuition, gut, inner wisdom. Whatever you want to call it. You already have everything you need to have anything you want. Listening to that core voice will guide you toward making the best trade-offs possible for your life.

Here's an example: Sally left her job to stay home till the kids were in school. She convinced herself that she could run a successful home based business while taking care of her toddler. Some of her tradeoffs: Get off the traditional career track to be home with children, work home based while chasing the toddler all day. Work long into the night to finish all the home and work todo's. End result: exhaustion, depression, and a strong desire to throw in the towel.

Then, Sally made one trade-off. Part time day care for the toddler in exchange for focused time to work her business. In three short weeks she is back on track, jumping on opportunities and focusing her energys in chunks of time vs diffusing it all day.

It's all about "Making Optimal Trade-Offs!"

Random Thoughts on Accountability

I was sharing with a colleague earlier today about my 25 years in Corporate America and the number of times a well intended executive came up with an "Accountability Program". It usually included a slogan, some internal marketing collateral and many PowerPoint presentation water-falled through the organization. Inevitably the masses would roll there eyes, say "here we go again" it's the "A" word and go back to doing what they had always done in the way they had always done it. It made me think about why the well-intended programs failed time and again.

And then it came to me. Accountability isn't something you tell someone else to be. Accountability is the measure of how aligned you are to your own integrity. For example: I woke up this morning feeling out of sorts, like something wasn't quite right. I was tired, kranky, unmotivated and scenarios of the week's events kept playing in my head, many of them representing unfinished business. So I asked myself: "On a scale of 1-10 (1 low, 10 high) what is my satisfaction level with how I am aligned to my own integrity right now?" and the number that came up was "2". Well that explained everything for me. So, I took 5 actions steps to clean up the unfinished business. I felt the dark cloud drift away, my energy began to return and where there was doubt there was now faith that I could do what needed to be done. Voila! by being accountable and completing unfinshed business, my integrity score bumped up to a 6 and freed me up to look at what else I needed to take care of. And that's just the beginning. . .

WHAT IF. . .

. . . all stress was caused by one thing? Specifically the kind of stress that eats away at our bodies the way a faulty fire sprinkler system would rot a building from the inside out. You know, the unhealthy stress. The kind that shows up when you are in a rage or scared silly. That fight or flight response. It appears when that crazy driver cuts you off or when your co-worker takes your ideas or you think a perfect stranger is thinking negatively about you. When the dog chews your favorite shoe or when you have to give a big presentation in front of a large group. Did you know that the number two fear behind fear of spiders is the fear of being evaluated negatively in social situations? Seriously? The number two fear is that someone (who we may not even know) might think something negatively about us. I can feel some of you shaking at the thought! And that's the point. You just had a thought and it sent you reptilian. Into fight or flight. It's just a thought. About something you have absolutely no control over. Other people's judgment. The response is automatic. You feel threatened, you react.

So what's the one thing I believe causes stress? Wanting a situation to be different than what it is. Some idiot cut you off, your shoe is trashed and your co-worker is ruthless, you think someone is thinking negatively about you. It's done, it happened, there is no turning back. What if you could just say so what? And not the kind of defensive so what we said when we were kids. A neutral so what. Or some other neutral response. But that's not what human's do. No way. Human's have to find other humans to complain to about how mad they are at that crazy driver or the lazy co-worker who can't come up with his own ideas. Give a human an ear and we'll tell you just how wronged we are and that whatever happened shouldn't have. Think about it. There is no such thing as it shouldn't have happened. It already did! If I had a dollar for every hour I spent complaining to another poor soul about how wronged I was and how screwed up the other guy is. . . suffice it to say I've wasted a bit of time and energy.

But, I've learned a trick that has reduced my stress level by at least 80%. Acceptance. I know, I talked about it last blog, but it's not as simple as it sounds. It's a new habit that is contrary to how our human brains work. Especially the left side that looks for what's wrong or right, good or bad, black or white. So how do you develop the habit of acceptance? Every time you feel that icky stress (fight or flight) notice it. Say, "there's that feeling." I either want to hit something or run. Then, ask a question like "is there anything I can do to affect this situation?" if the answer is yes, determine what the action is and do it or commit to doing it as soon as it makes sense. If the answer is no, well, can you see how futile it is to give it any more attention? Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. . .

Of course, if you love drama, it will certainly feed the drama and you can draw lots of other people in to your drama, but is that really who you want to be? What if you just let it be?
Think about it. Try it. Make it a practice. See how much lighter you feel and smoother your day goes. Seriously you will be shocked at how much more time and energy are available to you for the things that really matter!

Next blog: Guilt Free Fun and Leisure!

From Resistance to Acceptance

The single most powerful way to get out of your own way is through acceptance. I did not say agreement. Nor did I say be a doormat. And I"m not talking about think and be positive and somehow you will magically get what you desire. No, I'm simply talking about the act of acceptance.

Take the weather in Northern Michigan. Yesterday it was in the mid 40's, the snow was almost gone, grass was showing for pity sake! We saw the first snowflake while on a walk at around 5:00. By 8:00 there was 6 inches of snow on the ground and by morning 15 inches. You would have thought the sky had fallen. The groaning about the weather, would this winter ever end? and oh my blah, blah, blah. And this was just the weather people. Hello? this is Northern Michigan where you can have snow one day and a tornado the next. It has always been like this. It will always be like this.

So what happens when resistance (I hate Michigan weather, it depresses me, I can't go anywhere, it's so cold, I can't work out. . . ) shifts to acceptance (Oh look, it's a typical March where one day has no resemblance to the next.) Let's play it out. With resistance, you get stress, frustration, even anger and for sure, stuck. With acceptance you get choice. Acceptance invites no negative energy. In fact, it clears the way for positive action. "Shoveling the snow will be my workout today and while I'm at it, I think a snow angel is in order, or maybe snowballs thrown for the dog to chase. He makes me laugh when he can't figure out where it went." Acceptance opens the door to new perspectives. Like seeing this snow as the first snowfall of the season, which by the way is exactly what it looks like. Soft, clean, and frankly very pretty against the clear blue sky.

Try this the next time you get caught in resistance for anything. Notice the resistance. Feel it for a minute or two. Notice how tight you feel, like someone placed a band around your forehead or has forced your jaws to stick together. Maybe your heart is pounding or you are feeling agitated like you've had a bit too much caffeine.

Ask yourself: Do I have any control in this situation? If the answer is no then acceptance is your only choice. So you can say, "This is out of my control." In a calm, non-blaming way. Or you can just say. "Okay." Say it out loud a few times if you must until the tension and agitation begin to subside. Okay is simply acknowledgment. Not agreement. Again, once you accept you can take positive action. With resistance all you get is stuck and messiness.

Oh, by the way. All stress is caused by resisting the present moment. More about that next time!

Why is advice so easy to give and difficult to accept?

Especially when that advice comes from myself? Advice is my gift. I can't recall a time when it wasn't simple for me to assess a situation and blurt out some sage advice. I can remember in my 20's a wise older woman with a psychology degree (my boss at the time) asking "How did you get so wise?" I remember thinking "Huh? What is she talking about?" Most of the time the advice I give works. When solicited, of course.

Until I'm working with me. What is up with that? I know what I need to do. What do I do instead? ANYTHING else! I think I should do what? Nah, I'd rather get in my own way, sabotage any chance of success and stand defiant when I make no progress. It's as if there is a small part of me that believes it has to be hard. Messy. Challenging. Dramatic!

Take this blog for example. It's been a goal for at least 4 months. Here's how I became stuck.

1. Make a decision to start a blog (how hard can it be?)
2. Begin process of resistance (fantasize about overnight success, get overwhelmed, avoid)
3. Chastise self for procrastinating (pick up virtual club, beat on virtual head)
4. After extended period, get fed up, just do it. (wonder why it took so long)

Imagine the stress that could have been avoided if step 2 and 3 were skipped!

Next time, I'll ask a few helpful questions like I would with anyone else:

What small steps can you take today to get started?
How much time will it take?
When will it be done?
Are you willing to do it?
What will you do to disrupt the sabotage cycle when it begins?
Repeat until complete.

Whew! Does anybody else do this to themselves?