Restoring Conversation

I discovered a book that I can’t put down:  Turning to One Another:  Simple Conversations to Restore Hope to the Future by Margaret Wheatley.  In fact, Wheatley’s book Leadership and the New Science was a book that influenced my thinking about leadership and organizations.  A few years ago, I was able to interview Wheatley about leadership as part of my Sage study.

This new book is so thought provoking that I am going to be writing several posts on some of the main themes included in the book.  But the premise is that we have lost the art of conversation.  In our busy lives, we are not taking the time to listen to one another.  Wheatley says:

“The entire world seems hypnotized in the wrong direction—encouraging us to love things rather than people, to embrace everything new without noticing what’s lost or wrong, to choose fear instead of peace.  We promise ourselves everything except each other.  We’ve forgotten the source of true contentment and well-being.”

So Wheatley is determined to remind us to rediscover the art of conversation and she tells us how to do this.  I will be sharing more about the conditions that help with good conversation, including simplicity, courage, and listening.  Stay tuned.

The Way I See It -- Learning to See the World as a Sage

How many cups of Starbucks coffee have you had where you actually read the message on the side of the cup?  These messages are all titled:  The Way I See It and are usually quotes from celebrities or names of people we should recognize.  I know that most of the time I forget to pay attention and neglect to read the message.  Yesterday, message #273 by General Colin Powell caught my attention:

“All children need a laptop.  Not a computer, but a human being laptop.  Moms, dads, grannies, grandpas, aunts, and uncles.  Someone to hold them, read to them, and teach them.  Loved ones who will embrace them and pass on the experiences, rituals, and knowledge of a hundred previous generations.  Loved ones who will pass to the next generation their expectations of them, their hopes, and their dreams.”

Without using the word, this message is all about sage-ing:  synthesizing life’s experiences in order to pass on wisdom to future generations. 

From now on, I am determined to read every message on a Starbucks cup and not miss the opportunity to read a message that will make me think.   

Daily OMs

You are what you think.  Your thoughts are revealed in behaviors.  Garbage in—garbage out.  PMA:  Positive Mental Attitude is key.  So focusing on positive thoughts can keep our behaviors moving in the right direction.

Someone shared this website with me and I am sharing it with you:  www.dailyom.net.  You can subscribe FREE and then you, too, will receive daily meditative messages.  More often than not, the messages are as if someone is reading my mind.  I find the messages to be insightful and powerful in reminding me to stop, think, and reflect and then go on with my day.

There will be messages that don’t resonant with you, but let me know what you think.  You can also go back into the archives and retrieve previous messages organized by categories.  It is a wonderful free resource—almost as if someone is "out there" looking out for me.  Now I need to pay it forward and watch out for others.

 

Learning from Michelle Obama--On the Journey to Becoming a Sage

After reading an interview with Michelle Obama, I was struck with the kind of environment she is creating in the White House.  In fact, she said “I’ve taken Barack’s mantra:  This isn’t about us.  There’s so much history here that no one family can claim this space [White House] as their own.” 

Michelle was asked how she was working with the staff and the girls and her response is that of a real leader:

I want the house to feel like home, so it’s important for me to get to know the people we work with, to be able to joke with them and tease them.  So I want the girls to make their own beds.  If they don’t learn to make their beds or to clean their rooms, what are they going to do when they go to college?  It can’t be foreign to them to be part of a working household. 

So in the first few days, I gathered my east Wing team and the residence staff—the folks who clean the chandeliers, the people in the kitchen, everyone—and thanked them for helping us transition through the move.  Then I talked about our vision for this house:  that it would be filled with life, that we’d have people in and out, that the kids would roam around.  I want the kids to be treated like children, not little princesses … So the girls help set the table, they help bring food out, they work with the butler staff, and they’re in the kitchen laughing and making their toast in the morning.

Michelle closed the interview by saying:

I know that all I can do is be the best me that I can.  And live life with some gusto.  Giving back is a big part of that.  How am I going to share this experience with the American people?  I’m always thinking about that.

What a great role model?  I am sure I will be learning more from Michelle.  What are you always thinking about?

Understanding Grief--Important for Leading and Sage-ing

Recently I had the chance to interview Deborah Coryell, author of Good Grief.  This has been the best book I have read on understanding the process of grief.  In the current economic situation, grief and loss are abundant.  As increasingly more people lose their jobs, these losses manifest in all kinds of losses.  People are losing status, homes, family relationships, sense of identity just to name a few.

Coryell told me that loss is all about change regardless if the changes are positive or negative.  With change comes loss and we need to better understand how to live through it rather than get over it.  She talked about the need for leaders to develop skills around grief and loss in order to help the people who work with them, but that the process starts with the self.

• Examine the leader's belief system around loss and grief. 
• Explore fears, images, experiences around loss and grief.
• Realize the boundaries and comfort zone around change.
• Develop healing language rather than wounding language to communicate
• Establish rituals and ceremonies to recognize life is sacred.

Coryell emphasized that in our culture the myth is about closure or putting the loss behind us.  Instead, she said we need to think about integrating the loss and learning to live with it until it becomes good grief. 

I was struck by Coryell's statement that "every act of destruction is followed by an act of creation and every act of creation is followed by an act of destruction."  This is the balance and dance between yin and yang or life and death.

The first step is in helping leaders realize that grief work is important work for a leader.  We can help ourselves and others be whole people who can bring their mind, body, and spirit to work if we better understand that loss, grief, and suffering accompany change--any kind of change.  And change is all around us.

What is Sage-ing?

This past weekend I conducted a workshop for a women's retreat at my church called Living Life on Purpose and with Passion.  It is based on sage-ing concepts from the Sage-ing Guild.  Since I use the word sage (i.e. elder, wise one), people want me to define the word.  This is my best definition:

"A sage's work is to synthesize wisdom from long life experience and formulate this into a legacy for future generations."

What a goal for all of us to have!  Live inspired and pass it on. 

Dale Carnegie--The Rest of the Story

Recently I had the chance to be a guest at a graduation ceremony for a Dale Carnegie course.  I knew going into this that Dale Carnegie was about learning how to become a better public speaker.  What I realized early into the ceremony was that this course is so much more.  Dale Carnegie courses are more about leadership and becoming the best person one can be.  This was an "aha" for me. 

Every person had one last assignment that included explaining the value they had gained from the course.  Of the 30 people, the average age was about 35 and I was amazed at the transformations being realized and articulated in the group.  In fact, I was so enlightened by the whole experience that I interviewed the director to learn more. 

My driving question was this:  In these uncertain times, how can Dale Carnegie add value?

I was told that Dale Carnegie is all about viewing people as assets in which to invest.  We are all having to do more with less and faster.  The companies that create a culture where people are engaged tend to perform better than the competition by retaining the best people.  Dale Carnegie can help leaders at all levels with coaching and mentoring by encouraging honest conversations for growth.

Dale Carnegie emphasizes public speaking because that is a vehicle for gaining confidence.  The enhanced confidence becomes a tool for leading effectively so it is a means to an end.  I left that evening thinking Dale Carnegie is a great investment in people and they will forever be grateful.  I am convinced that the graduates will always remember this positive experience that added value to their lives forever.  It will never leave them.

Are any readers Dale Carnegie graduates?  What do you think?

How to Understand

In an interview with Deborah Coryell about grief, she said that "in order to understand, we need to stand under."  When she said this, I was not sure what she said so I called her back just to have her clarify this statement.  This is what she said:

"In order to understand something, we have to stand under to explore our own infrastructure.  Think of a car.  We want it to work, but we can't understand how it works unless we go under the car or under the hood of the car and examine what is invisible.

Or a bridge.  We go over the bridge without thinking about it.  But if we want to know how the bridge is working, we need to go under the bridge to view the strengths and to see if there are weaknesses or to learn what is holding it up.  The problems are often hidden and it is not until we go under that we can learn to understand."

Coryell said the same thing is true for ourselves.  We need to "get under" to understand our belief system that is holding us up.  We need to unlayer what we think about whatever it is we want to understand.  If we want to understand grief,we need to unlayer what we think about change, loss, love, life.  Only then can we know how to make changes that will improve how we act as people and leaders.

A Great Find and FREE

Recently I discovered a great "find" that is FREE.  Maybe I am just behind, but if you are interested in topic such as spirituality, holistic living, and sage-ing, you need to go to Oprah's website.  On her radio show called Soul Series, Oprah has high quality podcasts of her interviews with people such as Daniel Pink, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Elizabeth Lesser, and Ekhart Tolle.

Each segment is about 20 minutes, but I found myself watching segment after segment while time just went by.  You feel as if you are in the living room with these people while they are being interviewed.  This is the best tip I can offer that is inspiring and FREE.  You could easily integrate an interview into a workshop.