The Intersection between the World's Greatest Need and Your Greatest Passion

It is not often that we post two blog articles in one day. But I came across a quote that got my attention and I wanted to memorialize it in our blog:

"Your life should be about finding the intersection of the world's greatest need and your greatest passion."

Wow! How many  of us are searching for meaning and purpose in life? This quote gives us a little direction.

It came from an article I am reading as background for an MBA class I will likely be teaching in the fall on Corporate Social Responsibility. Water is a hot sustainability topic. Fast Company just this month published an article that talks about a new organization, water.org, which was co-founded by Matt Damon, who has found his passion in addressing the water crisis.  

In an era when so many celebrities are making the news by breaking laws and misbehaving, it is encouraging to read about Matt, who is using his celebrity to lead others to do something about a very important issue that affects 3 billion people around the globe. What an inspiration he is!

Questions to ponder: What is my greatest passion? How can I use it to server the world's great needs? Or even the world's little needs right here in my own neighborhood?

It's Just an Inconvenience

It is only 6:30AM on the west coast and already I have been inspired! A friend sent me a link to Diane Rose's story and I was so uplifted I had to write and share her story with you!

You see, Diane Rose is a master quilt maker. Her gorgeous quilts are displayed all around her home, which you can see in the news report. What makes Diane's story remarkable is that she has been blind since childhood.

Her interviewer asks Diane how she deals with her handicap. She says she doesn't see her blindness as a handicap -- it is only an "inconvenience"! Her blindness can get in her way when she wants to do something, she says; but, she can always find a way to get around it!

She goes on to encourage others to just get out and do! No matter how much you hurt, physically or emotionally, no matter how down you may be, she says just get up off the couch and go do something for someone else and you will be on your way to feeling better!

Diane is a wonderful leader. She is leading from right where she is, in her small home making quilt after quilt. Her attitude and accomplishments are inspirational for all of us.

Questions to ponder: What "inconveniences" am I allowing to slow me down? How would perceiving them as inconveniences, instead of as problems or something worse, enable me to better master them?

Creating Positive Change

Appreciative Inquiry. Ever heard of it?

Appreciative Inquiry is a ground breaking approach that Janet and I have translated into a suite of tools that we call Appreciative Business Practices. We recently presented some of these tools to groups of Job Seekers at Job Connections and Experience Unlimited. Materials from our talk, Creating Positive Change for Job Seekers, is available to anyone who is interested here.

In a nutshell, Appreciative Inquiry is simply focusing on what is working in a situation -- the strengths and positive attributes of a situation, the individuals involved, and the environment.

Sounds simple, doesn't it? Not so easy in practice! Think about it ... we humans are oriented to look for what is wrong -- we conduct "root cause analyses" and "gap analyses". Performance reviews focus on "areas needing improvement". We are applauded for solving problems.

It is a sea change to begin by focusing on what is right and good. If we can make this change, we can create an atmosphere of energy and enthusiasm. Creativity and innovation flourish. Happiness and fulfillment surface.

We love to spread the positive, uplifting message of Appreciative Inquiry and to introduce our Appreciative Business Practices. Let us know if you would like to have us speak to your group.

Questions to ponder:  How much time do I spend thinking about what is good and right about a situation or person? How much time do I spend thinking about what I don't like or what is wrong with a person or situation? How would things be different if I spent more time on the positive aspects?

Leading like a Woman

This morning, I listened to a talk by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and Fortune's #16 Most Powerful Woman in Business in 2010. Her focus was why we have too few women leaders. She cited disappointing statistics: 9 of 190 world leaders, 5%, are women; 13% of parliament level leaders; 15% of C-level business leaders; and 20% of non-profit leaders.

Sheryl gave a number of reasons for this. She believes that women "drop out" of their careers, in her mind to raise children (and, in my mind, to accept early retirements and workforce reductions that seem to target women and older workers). But she also believes that the mindset women bring to their careers impede their ability to make it to the top.

This is an assertion that has been made many times. Statistics indicate that women underestimate their own abilities while men overestimate them; that women attribute their success to external factors and men to themselves; and that women are disliked when they are successful when men are both liked and respected for their success. Most messages suggest that women need to change their thinking on the first two points and toughen up on the last one.

I think I see it a little differently.

I believe that women are leaders, right here and right now. As Janet and I have been saying for two years in this blog, true leadership begins right where we are; it is not the sole domain of C-level leaders. Women lead through influence and example, even when they don't have a leadership title -- even when they are not earning an income. Women make a difference, every day and every where.

So, what if, instead of changing mindsets, women advocated their mindsets?

• If every leader (and every contributor, for that matter) recognized his/her own strengths and abilities and estimated them accurately -- rather than under or overestimating them -- how much more confidence and relevance would their contributions and results have? how much more long-lasting might they be?
• If every leader recognized that external factors such as timing, circumstance, and other people's contributions were as vital to her/his success as her/his own abilities, how would that change the decisions made? the compensation paid? the jobs retained?

Let's consider leading like women, rather than asking women to change the way they lead. We might create a better world!

Questions to ponder: How do I lead each and every day? Do I recognize my true abilities and use them with confidence? Or do I think small and underestimate what I can do? Or do I get cocky and overestimate what I can do? Do I give credit where credit is due? Or do I credit myself for all my accomplishments?

Leading as a Wife or Husband

This morning, my husband and I experienced a significant snafu that I believed was due to a shortcut he had taken a couple of weeks ago. I knew he knew what I thought; so, I was praying intently to keep my mouth shut!

He later told me he wanted to avert me telling him what he could have done to have avoided this snafu; so, he started in on me. Well, I wasn’t about to keep my mouth shut after that!

Our little spat didn’t last long, but we were quiet as I drove him to the ACE train. My husband was big enough to break the silence by apologizing, which I quickly did, also. Then, we laughed as we told each other what had been going through our minds…and we realized that we could have avoided hurtful words and tones if only we’d focused on ourselves instead of trying to anticipate the other’s actions and protect ourselves from them.

What was remarkable to me was that the tension lasted for such a short period of time and that the little episode ended with love, laughter, and appreciation for each other.

I believe that is thanks to the prayer that I pray nearly every day and in which my husband joins me on weekends. I share it with you here in the hope that it will inspire you to be a leader in your own marriage.

The Married Couple’s Prayer

Dear Lord,

Thank you for giving us each other as spouses and for the love that has grown between us. Help us to be good partners to each other.

We fully realize that we don’t have what it takes to be so without Your help.
Teach us how to pray for each other and to make our prayers a true language of love. Show us what unconditional love really is and how to communicate it in a way the other can clearly perceive.

Bring unity between us so that we can be in agreement about everything (Amos 3:3). Grant us to be like-minded toward one another, according to Christ Jesus (Romans 15:5).


Make us a team, not pursuing separate, competitive, or independent lives, but working together, overlooking each other’s faults and weaknesses for the greater good of our marriage.


Make us each other’s helpmate, companion, champion, friend, and support. Help us to create a peaceful, restful, and safe home together. Teach us how to take care of ourselves and stay attractive to each other. Grow us into creative and confident people who are rich in mind, soul, and spirit. Make each of us the kind of spouse the other can be proud of.


Help us to pursue the things which make for peace and the things by which one may edify another (Romans 14:19). May we be “perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (1 Corinthians 1:10).


We lay all of our expectations at Your cross, Lord. We release each other from the burden of fulfilling each other in areas where we should be looking to You. Help us to accept each other the way we are and not try to change each other, yet still release each other to change in ways we cannot even imagine. We leave any changing that needs to be done in Your hands, fully accepting that neither of us is perfect and never will be. Only You, Lord, are perfect and we look to You to perfect us.


We pray that our commitment to You and to one another will grow stronger and more passionate every day. Show us how to support and respect each other as we rise to places of leadership in our home. Help us to understand each other’s dreams and see things from the other’s perspective. Reveal to us what the other wants and needs and show us potential problems before they arise.


Breathe Your life into this marriage, Lord. Make us new people each day. Give us fresh perspectives and positive outlooks. Help us to see each other with new eyes, new appreciation, new love, new compassion, and new acceptance.


Amen.


DURING TIMES OF DIFFICULTY:


Dear Lord,


Take our selfishness, impatience, and irritability and turn them into kindness, long-suffering, and the willingness to bear all things.


Take our old emotional habits, mindsets, automatic reactions, rude assumptions, and self-protective stances and make us patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and self-controlled.


Take the hardness of our hearts and break down the walls with Your battering ram of revelation.


Give us new hearts and work in us Your love, peace, and joy (Galatians 5:22-23). We are not able to rise above who we are at this moment. Only You can transform us.


Show us where there is sin in our hearts, especially with regard to each other. We confess the times we’ve been unloving, critical, angry, resentful, disrespectful, or unforgiving toward each other. Help us to put aside any hurt, anger, or disappointment we feel and forgive each other the way You do – totally and completely, no looking back. Make us tools of reconciliation, peace, and healing in this marriage. Enable us to communicate well and rescue us from the threshold of separation where the realities of divorce begin.

(BTW, I pray the section for difficult times every day, too -- because I know I do things that irritate my husband and that I am annoyed by things he does; this prayer helps me to deal with that reality!)

Leaders as Stewards

Not too long ago, I listened to Ken Blanchard talk about leadership. He made a point about "self-serving leadership". YouDictionary defines self serving as "... serving ones own selfish interests, especially at the expense of others.”

Self-serving leadership is very likely a big part of the reason our economy is suffering as it is. Which suggests that, if we want to make a better world for our children, we had better start building leaders who are not self-serving. So, what kind of leaders do we need? What kind of leader is not self-serving? Back in 1970, Robert Greenleaf introduced the concept of Servant Leadership and since then renowned authors such as Stephen Covey, Peter Block, Peter Senge, and Margaret Wheatley have advanced the idea.

Servant-leaders achieve results by making the needs of others a priority; they practice Spiritual Intelligence, a concept Janet and I discuss in our presentations. Servant-leaders are often seen as stewards of their organization's resources (human, financial and physical).

Which leads me to the point of this blog. It seems to me that, to be an effective leader, one must be a responsible steward. Think about it ... if corporate leaders were truly stewards of the people in their organizations, they could never accept giant sums of money for business deals that cost employees their jobs and livelihoods. A steward mindset would recognize that the purpose of business enterprise includes providing livelihoods to the people who work there.

We don't have to wait until corporate leaders recognize their role as stewards. We can begin right here at home by leading where we are. When we act as stewards of our environment, our neighbors, our families, our possessions ... we are exhibiting the very leadership qualities those who lead us must adopt.

Questions to ponder:  What example do I set by the way I care for the people around me? for my possessions? for my environment? How can I be a better steward of all that I have, people, possessions, and finances?

RENEW for Interview Planning

Rosemarie and I firmly believe in the power of positive planning and bringing your whole self to every circumstance. To that end, we have created the RENEW model and applied it to the Interview Planning process. RENEW uses an appreciative approach and is focused on "Research", "Enjoy", "Navigate", "Execute" and "Win".

By bringing this approach to the interview planning process, candidates are better prepared, focused on their strengths, and bring a plan for not only themselves but for the company they interview with. They are able to execute with the power of leadership and influence, and focus on how to make a Win out of every interview/circumstance/interaction.

How many times have we heard interview candidates talk about negative experiences with interviews? Interviews can create anxiety, fear, and the potential for disappointment. When we take an "appreciative" approach (more on this in a future BLOG post), we look at interviews as an earned opportunity to make a difference - for ourselves and for others. This way the interview is now a refreshing opportunity to soar, learn, and serve. Imagine how your interviewer will respond when the focus is on helping them solve problems in the scope of the interview process. By positively preparing and understanding the organizational challenges, even interviewees can provide benefit to business.

To learn more, visit our BLOG often as we unravel a positive approach to interviewing in future posts.

Questions to Ponder: Am I being a leader in my interview opportunities? Do I proactively highlight how my strengths and skills suit a position, or do I let the interviewer unravel them through seemingly random questions? When anxiety takes over, am I able to learn and serve in the process?

Spiritual Intelligence 559 Years Ago!

One of the appreciative business practices Janet and I discuss in our presentations is the aspiration toward Spiritual Intelligence. In short, the "Intelligence Spectrum" begins with what is called Multiple Intelligence, a type of intelligence that recognizes that one's knowledge and experience creates skills and leads to competence. Further up the spectrum, we discover the much talked about Emotional Intelligence, a form of intelligence that recognizes and manages the emotions in a situation and leads to success. At the most evolved end of the spectrum is Spiritual Intelligence, the intelligence which drives a person to focus more outside oneself than within and leads to fulfillment.

This morning, I read Marc Cenedella's blog that provides an image of Leonardo Da Vinci's resume. I was surprised to learn that, before he became an artist and inventor, Da Vinci was what was called an "artificer", someone who made bombs. And to get a job, he submitted his resume to the Duke of Milan in a letter. 

What is notable about the letter is that it reflects a high degree of Spiritual Intelligence on the part of the young Da Vinci.  Instead of touting his accomplishments, of which there were many, he assessed the needs of the Duke and presented his skills in terms of what he could do for the Duke. In other words, he focused more on the Duke and his needs and interest than on himself and his accomplishments -- Spiritual Intelligence!

Questions to ponder: In what ways can I practice Spiritual Intelligence today? When do I catch myself focusing more on myself than on others? What  might happen if I deliberately shifted my focus from myself to others? 

Who, me?

So often, when something goes wrong, we want to run and point away from ourselves. And when others' fingers point to us, we want to say, "Who, me?" In blame-centered families and business cultures, it is not uncommon to see loved ones or professionals "throwing people under the bus", a term used to describe casting blame for a problem on a person or team, sometimes destroying careers and confidence in the process.

When we function in a culture like this, we live in fear and often join the finger-pointing to protect ourselves. This behavior continues and intensifies the blame culture ... and the dissatisfaction and unhappiness that often attends this culture.

Breaking out of the blame cycle takes strength -- and true leadership. One step is to acknowledge one's strengths and the strengths of others in the family or team, aligning those strengths so that weaknesses are irrelevant. When people are doing what they are truly good at, their confidence level is higher and the fear factor dissipates.

Another step is to readily admit when a mistake has been made and to offer remedial steps -- before anyone else can point a finger. Noting the problem early and accepting responsibility for it sets an example for others, minimizes the need to point fingers, and enables the focus to move to corrective action, which is much more productive and uplifting.

In his article, Self Awareness and the Effective Leader, Chris Musselwhite discusses the importance of being self aware, of recognizing weaknesses and leveraging others to compensate for them, of admitting one's own mistakes and moving on, and getting other people's feedback and impressions of your effectiveness.

Being self aware will liberate us from ever adopting a "Who, me?" attitude and will empower us, and others, to focus on productive pursuits free of fear of failure and blame.

Questions to ponder:  When do I find myself running away from blame? What do I do to promote a "blame culture" in my family or work unit? Are there areas of my life that I can accept responsibility for something gone wrong, right now? If I did, what would happen?

Appreciative Practices for Job Seekers

Thank you to everyone who joined us at the CPC Job Connections event for our talk, "Reinventing Ourselves through Job Transition: Creating Positive Change in 2011". Below is a link to the presentation material that we used. In it, you will find more detail on our "Reinvention Top 10 List":


1. We are eagles, not lambs!


2. We must bring our whole selves to all that we do – not just the person who is unemployed


3. Each of us can lead where we are, regardless of title or employment status


4. Every day is a gift, whether or not we are employed


5. Our time between jobs is purpose filled


6. We will not find the right job until we have accomplished or learned what we are supposed to during this time; we are preparing for the next phase of our lives


7. A focus on others will reduce our fear and anxiety – volunteer!


8. Interviewers are people, too, with their own fears and insecurities … which we can alleviate


9. When we get a chance to talk with a hiring manager, we must remember that we earned that conversation


10. We define how much is enough, not the rest of the world


We will write more about Appreciative Business Practices in future blogs. Stay tuned!

 Questions to ponder: What are my strengths? How do or can I use them to make a difference in my personal life? In my professional life? In what ways can I bring my "whole self" to my daily interactions?


To access the presentation material,
click here ==> http://www.box.net/shared/y1gp0ouv92

Do what you love to do!

Steve Jobs commencement speech to Stanford University's graduating class of 2005 is a reminder to all of us about how we spend our lives.

He speaks of 3 main stories - college, love, and life/death. A main message throughout these themes is to do what you love to do in life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

It's about 15 minutes in length, but well worth the time viewing. Steve is an inspiration to us all about doing what we love to do and living life to its fullest.

Questions to Ponder: What do you love to do? What past experiences have helped you be successful in doing what you love? What can you say to yourself each morning to inspire you to continue in these endeavors?

Please post comments, we love to hear from you!

Capitalism may not be so “Capital”

Finally. Someone notable has ventured an opinion on capitalism. And it is not all positive. Now that is leadership!


In an interview you can see on You Tube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrsjLA2NGTU), Michael Porter, the Harvard professor who has 18 books on competition and strategy under his belt, talked about capitalism in terms we need to hear. He said, “Increasingly, companies are being perceived as creating profits at the expense of the community…” He is challenging businesses to move to a model in which businesses create “shared value” for both business and society by creating products and services that are good for the consumer, the environment, and for society.


Building on Porter’s thinking, let’s examine the very essence of the existence of business. Commerce was established early in human history as a means of survival. People traded in order to obtain what they needed to live. When individuals left agrarian occupations to work in a “trade”, it was to make a living.


The Total Quality Movement of the 1990s gave us the image of a “three legged stool” to remind us that business exists for three equal reasons: to serve the customer with products or services, to provide livelihood and a quality of life for the employee, and to generate a profit on the investment of the shareholder. TQM went on to advocate that if a company treats its employees properly, empowering them with clear vision, mission, values, priorities, training, and tools, those employees will ensure that clients are delighted and loyal which will generate significant shareholder profit. Conversely, when a disproportionate emphasis is put on any single leg of that stool for too long, the imbalance brings about calamity.


It seems to me that, in the pursuit of profit, many of us have forgotten at least one leg of that stool. The quality of our service or product may have been compromised in order to garner more profit. And millions of dedicated people, parents of families, have been severed from their jobs despite solid performance records … and find themselves without opportunities for a new job for extended periods of time. As a result, we are facing a severe economic downturn.


This is quite a calamity.


Perhaps it is time to focus on all three legs of that stool equally, again. Perhaps, as leaders, we need to ensure that the products and services we offer are healthy, green, and good for society. Perhaps, as leaders, we need to consider the employment of our people to be one of the primary reasons for our existence and resort to workforce reductions only after every other possible measure has been tried and the future of our organization, not just satisfactory profit levels, are at stake.


Questions to ponder: Are there areas of my life where I am compromising on quality unnecessarily? What am I doing to create jobs and opportunity for others? What can I do to bring more balance to all three legs of the piece of the world I occupy?

How do I focus on what is best for me and my family over what is best for us as well as the larger community?

Living Life to the Fullest

Yesterday I attended the memorial service of an inspiring woman, a very close family friend of Rosemarie. In listening to the stories, it was clear that Ann lived her life to the fullest in every aspect. Since our blog focuses on changing how/who we are in our worlds - individually, at the team level, and at the organizational level - I wanted to say a few things about "living" in these environments.

First of all, life takes courage. Courage is required to overcome our fears at a personal and professional level to obtain our unique goals and successes. Courage is required at the team level - whether in the family or the workplace - to stand for what is right and provide valuable input to potentially contentious conversations. Lastly, courage is an absolute must at the organizational level. In business, all employees are stakeholders and need to call on courage to be ethical and right in their everyday work.

Second, life takes reflection. We learn from our successes and correct based on our failures. Without courage, we often don't take chances to learn from our experiences. Reflection enriches our lives and the lives of those around us. We can reflect on not only our lives but on the lives of those we admire.

Lastly, life takes perseverance. If we don't have courage to do the things we deem important and reflect on our results - we may be apt to give up. Imagine if Edison gave up on the light bulb - our lives would clearly not be the same without that. Edison tried to get the light bulb to work around 1,000 times before succeeding. That is perseverance.

If we have courage, reflect on events around us, and persevere through it all - life will be full and meaningful - for ourselves and for all those around us. People will be inspired by our actions as Ann inspired all around her. Thank you Ann - an amazing woman, mother, friend and professional - Rest in peace and enjoy the dancing in heaven!

Questions to Ponder:
Are there areas in my life, workplace, or organization where I am afraid to take a stand and do the right thing? What result would happen if I had the courage? What would I learn from that?
When things fail, do I give up or try again? What "light bulb" opportunities am I trying to ignite in my life that have been put on the back burner?

Forged by Fire

The other day, my daughter and I were talking about a friend of hers who is going through difficult times. She was distraught over the pain and sorrow he was experiencing … it reminded her of her own grief when her father died just as she began her first year of college.

This led to a discussion of how the sorrow of her dad’s death has served her – how it has shaped her into a stronger, more sensitive, and more compassionate person. She is now much more aware of other people’s pain and she has a strong sense of how to handle difficult situations, how to be of comfort to others without being a burden.

My own childhood was a difficult one filled with disappoints and challenges. Those set-backs molded me into a strong person who perceives challenges as opportunities to try new approaches and to test new skills.

In both cases, my daughter and I had a choice: we could become victims to our situations or we could face them, as painful as they were, and learn from them – grow from them. My daughter could have taken a semester off from college and come home to the comfort and assurance of me and our home. But, instead, she bravely continued going to classes and faced the discomfort and unease of her classmates who didn’t know how to handle her and often ignored her because of this. In my case, I could have given up when the first challenge presented itself, rather than persevering and finding ways to overcome it.

Because of the choices we made – to confront pain instead of run from it – both of us have been shaped by our difficulties … as I put it when we talked, we have been forged by fire.

No one would wish difficult situations upon ourselves; but, when they do arise, we have the opportunity to both demonstrate and develop our characters, to shape ourselves into better people.

Questions to ponder: What difficulties are we facing today? How do we “run away” from them? And how can we, instead, confront those difficulties, use our character to deal with them, and allow these “fires” to “forge” us into becoming even better?