Good morning from a clear and cold west coast of Canada. The fire place is lit, and its warmth is spreading slowly but surely across the room. I hope there is such warmth literally and metaphorically in your life today.

I don’t know about you, but I found the election in the United States this week to be not only great television (I watched the CBC coverage) but a fascinating exploration of leadership lessons. One in particular struck me as I listened to one of the guest commentators on the CBC. She was a Republican and was intelligent and articulate. She was quite clear that her party had been ‘hijacked’ by a special interest group; a group of white, middle and upper class men who listened only to themselves and as such had fooled themselves into believing their own press. They appeared to assume that their idea of common sense was in fact “common.”  (For a journalist’s take on this please check out http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/11/07/f-rfa-macdonald-hopey-changey.html)

The crash of the hopes of many in the Republican party is due, at least in part to their refusal to attend to the ‘other.’ Yes, when people give you feedback, they may be incorrect. And, they may in fact be correct, and to simply dismiss the ‘other’ as ignorant, or worse ‘stupid,’ is, as we all witnessed on Tuesday night, not a good strategy, to say the least. A leaders, in politics, in business, in not-for-profits, one of the most important questions we can ask ourselves and our teams is, what are our detractors saying, and what might we learn from them, about us?

Some years ago, doing work with a board, one of the comments I heard from a participant as I finished up was “lots of sizzle, but no steak.” Now, this particular character had in fact been rather disruptive in the session, challenging me on some very arcane points, and interestingly, I had been warned about him by the client contact. I was at first very tempted to ignore his remark, especially as it was behind my back. And the more I thought about it, I realized that he did have a point. At that stage in my development as a facilitator and leader I did in fact put too much emphasis on my ability to make people laugh, and to have fun while learning. All admirable and important aspects of my work. And I began to see that for some, there was a “lot of sizzle but no steak.” And so, I began to dramatically increase the amount of  business and governance literature I not only read, but also included in my presentations; I referenced people who agreed with me, and those who had a different take. I welcomed respectful conflict into the meeting rooms I worked, moving a little away from the “fun” that had been so much of my ‘brand’ to that point in time. And my credibility increased dramatically. Some years later at a national conference I had two CEOs approach me separately after a presentation I had made. They both said, “I may not always agree with your point of view, but I am very glad you do what you do.” Probably the greatest compliments about my work I’ve ever received. And so I thank that character from those years ago. He was my ‘other’ and I couldn’t do what I do without him.

May we each have such encounters in our work.