header
"It is impossible to learn and look good at the same time"
Julia Cameron

Get Leadership Notes by Email

Greetings from a hotel in downtown Regina. I hope this finds each of you well. I’ve had the great pleasure of reading my brother in  law, Paul Alofs’ new book, “Passion Capital” http://www.mcnallyrobinson.com/9780771007477/paul-alofs/passion-capital which is coming out next week. It’s a great read. Early on in the book he talks about the importance of a creed, first using the example many of us are familiar with , that of Johnson & Johnson, and how important it was during the Tylenol scare all those years ago. But then, he shares the creed of the organization that he leads, The Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation. I quoted from their ‘creed’ in Paul’s book in a strategic planning workshop this morning;

“It may seem like we will be fighting this fight forever. But we won’t. Because we’re closing in. We have the momentum. We have the talent. And we have the passion. This is the front line. We are Canada’s cancer warriors. But we can’t do it alone. The world needs to hear the Princess Margaret message. So share it at every opportunity with anyone who will listen. It’s a simple message, really. But it’s a message of incredible power: we are conquering cancer at Canada’s cancer research centre, the Princess Margaret. In our lifetime.”

Conquering cancer in our life time. Now that is a compelling story!

If you want to get your team moving in a particular direction. If you want to get your organization to shift to a new environment, find the compelling story. What difference does your team make, what difference does your organization make to the people and communities it serves? What difference do you make to the people you serve? I am coming to understand that real success in life is found not in the salary, or even in the ‘freedom’ money appears to bring. Real success in life is found when the work we do makes a difference for other people. So, if you can’t find a compelling story in your team or organization as a leader, go and find a place to work that does make a difference. You’ll be so much happier, so much more at peace with yourself and others. And as such, a much better leader.

May each of us find a story and work that makes a difference.

Greetings from Air Canada 034 enroute to Toronto.

I had a wonderful conversation yesterday with a director from the board of a large credit union here in Canada. I was interviewing him for a project I’m on with that particular board. In the course of the one hour conversation he gave me three great ’leadership’ lines. And I mean great lines:

1. “I have children, grandchildren and great grandchildren – they are always on my mind”
2. “I don’t know how much I need to understand”
3. “I think [credit union x] is outgrowing me”

It may interest you to know that these pearls of wisdom came not from a ‘professional’ board member, not an accountant, or someone with an MBA, but a card carrying union member from a factory floor. Let’s consider each of these:

1. “I have children, grandchildren and great grandchildren – they are always on my mind”

Leadership is at least in part about moving towards a vision; and not simply about the next quarter’s results or making ‘budget’. Keeping in mind how our decisions and behaviours today will have an impact on future generations is a vital part of our work. To be sure boards need to have much longer horizon’s than department managers for example, but the lesson remains; what is the legacy we are leaving for the next generation of colleagues, what kind of workplace do we want to have now, and what kind of workplace do we aspire to having? Or put another way, is this a workplace I’d be comfortable having my child/grandchild/great grandchild work in? And if the answer to that is no, what do I need to do or who do I need to be to make a difference?

2. “I don’t know how much I need to understand”

Both of these next two lines speak to humility. (See also the work of Jim Collins in ‘Good to Great’ on humility) A large issue for leaders is “data smog.” We are smothered by information, opinions, concerns, risks, data, reports, whitepapers, discussion papers, emails, voicemails not to mention the information that gets sent to us by well meaning authors like me! This director was asking an important question for boards and for managers, do I need to know everything? Do I need to be an expert in all of the fields that my job/role might touch? I’ve learned that the answer to such questions is about literacy. Leaders generally need to be able to read and comprehend (and if you’re reading this, you’re on the right track). And we need to be financially literate; to be able to read the story that the financial reports are telling us. And we need to be interpersonally literate, to be able to work with and through people while enhancing them and serving their need to grow and develop. And we need to have an evolving and developing expertise in a certain area. And then, we need to be able to co-operate and learn with each other in the areas where those areas intersect. For example, I have a certain expertise in working with and through people, and I might have a colleague who has a certain expertise in financial statements. I am literate in financials but not expert, and say she is literate interpersonally but not expert. In short, she and I could make a good team, serving and coaching each other. How much do I need to understand? I need to be literate enough to know when I need an expert.

3.  “I think the organization is outgrowing me”

The second of the great humility lines. And the opposite is also true, I could be outgrowing the organization. In either case, the key is self awareness. As leaders, we need to know when it’s time to leave. This may be true at a couple of levels; for example, in my relationship with a trainee, she may be ‘outgrowing’ my coaching style, and it’s time for me to leave that aside. Or it may be that the issues and concerns that are important to me are losing their importance, the team is ‘growing’ in a different direction and it’s time for me to leave that issue or concern aside. Whichever is the case, I am the only barometer of how I’m feeling. Sometimes the best leadership activity is to leave it alone.

May this week be a week of legacy and humility.

Greetings from Vancouver, where the bulbs are beginning to burst, Spring is here!

I’ve been reflecting recently on the idea of compassion and the ‘bottom line.’ The responses I see fairly often about compassion and business is that kind of quizzical look from your dog when s/he turn’s their head slightly trying to work out what you’re doing. Compassion in business is not only seen as weird, but the whole concept is seen as rather alien.

I think this is likely related to how ‘compassion’ is defined. Compassion as pity, is not good for business. In fact, pity is not good for much, it’s hierarchical and subjects people to disempowerment. Compassion, in it’s strictest sense, is about putting my self in the shoes of the other person, and not doing anything that might hurt that person. And that leads to some very interesting perspectives that are very much about business and especially leadership. So, for example, if I know that someone is desperately unhappy in their job, and is not being productive, not performing at the best of their abilities, is it more compassionate to keep them employed in the organization, or is it more compassionate to support their efforts to find employment elsewhere, even to the point of firing them? Pity would support the former, compassion is about the latter.

In a phone conversation with a friend and sometime colleague yesterday talking about how compassion has improved their workplace, he explained that their research shows that their initiatives around compassion saved the organization about $1 million dollars over the last five years. They saw dramatic decreases in sick days, in tardiness, in losing good people because of bad relationships, and in short term disability costs. I asked him how that had happened. He said, first of all they framed the work under the auspices of compassion and forgiveness, and not for example conflict resolution. Both compassion and forgiveness require work on my part in order to succeed; often conflict resolution is seen as something others have to do. Next it was about the distinction between a team and a group of people who work together on projects. Teams meet regularly and hold each other accountable. It was also about clear job descriptions; team members know what their job is, and how it fits into the bigger picture. And it was about the good of the work. He said that in his organization people often fell back on “friendship”, thinking that although person ‘x’ was not pulling their weight, because of a ‘friendship’ they didn’t receive feedback. What was interesting was that true friendship is actually about reciprocal honesty, feedback and accountability. If I’m not pulling my weight, it is important that you let me know that, and then listen to my story about it with compassion. Perhaps there’s something going on in my life that is precluding me from pulling my weight. And if you cut me some slack for this short time, I will be able to do the same for you soon enough, because, compassion teaches us that we all have bad days.

And then, this important part of the equation, forgiveness. If we have been reciprocally honest and accountable with each other, then we are more likely to be able to forgive each other and move on. It’s the unclear and then unmet expectations, the triangulation of talking about each other and not to each other, and the long silences where we expect people to “get our point” that insidiously cause long term pain that manifests in sickness, tardiness, bad relationships and short term disability costs.

May this week find each of us adding to the bottom line by living and working more compassionately.

The 12 Days of Compassion continue here in Metro Vancouver, and this has presented me with some great opportunities to witness leadership on a daily basis. For example, the patient and diligent work of one of the members of the organizing team. An engineer by trade, his amazing skill of identifying the constituent parts of a situation and then mapping out the steps to mitigate, alleviate or ‘fix’ problems, is brilliant to behold. Another person, a quiet and soft spoken soul, who is so well respected and  connected in the communities that a simple call or email from her gets doors opened immediately. She is a human and far more gracious ‘Linked In’. I’ve also noticed the leadership emerging in young people. For example, I was speaking with a young man last evening, and as I told him how much I’d enjoyed working with him and his colleagues, I said, ‘you know, every encounter I’ve had here has been great, every person here was wonderful.” He said, “I wonder how much that has to do your attitude as well.” I thought, wise words, it is all about reciprocity.

And then today, a follow up conversation with a business leader who is interested learning more about compassion and the impact it has in the working parts of our lives. She said; “compassion to me is 80% of people working in work they love.” What a great image! She continued, “you know if you’re not happy in your work, you’re not going to be able to do much more than scrape together stuff for yourself. If you are happy in your work, you’re going to be more interested in going outside of yourself.” I was reflecting on the CEOs with whom I’ve been working this week, and how each of them was in fact doing what they were called to do. They had a flow, they had a sense of strength and courage about them, in  large part, I suggest because they were doing what they were called to do. Working in work they love.

So, for us as leaders in organizations, especially those of us fortunate enough to be doing what we love to do on a daily basis; perhaps we might ask ourselves, how can I facilitate opportunities for the people in this organization, or in this department to work at what they love? How can I support the creation of places where others experience the flow the strength and courage that I get every day working at what I love. And if you are reading this, and thinking to yourself, “I don’t actually love the work I do, I’d rather be doing something else.” That may be a very important exploration for you to go on, both for you and for the organization and team. In fact it may be the most compassionate thing you could do for yourself.

  
If you appreciated this edition of Leadership Notes, feel free to forward it, or invite your friends and colleagues to receive this weekly by having them email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

Good morning from a sunny Vancouver. I’ve been thinking about ‘fairness’ recently, and have been reminded of an important lesson I learned from a few years ago.

 

When we talk about ‘fairness’ we need to be sure about what we mean, and how the word is understood by others. There are two ways of defining “fair” and it is likely useful for each of us to recognize which is our default understanding. So let’s imagine that we have a pie, and there are 9 people who want a piece. How do we divide it ‘fairly’? Think for a moment, how would you divide it?

 

For many of us, we’ll default to cutting smaller pieces so that all 9 get ‘something’.

 

For others of us, we’ll wonder is there some criteria by which we might distribute various pieces to some, but not necessarily all 9 people. So for example, we might say the people who made the pie get served first, or the people who were first in line, or the people who worked hardest today, or the people who are hungriest.

 

When you distribute the pie ‘fairly’, make sure that everyone understands the definition of fairness you used.

 

And so this week, may each of us find moments of clarity both as distributers and receivers of pies.

 

And a wonderful Easter and Passover to us all…

  

My evenings this week and next are largely booked with events surrounding the visit of internationally known author and convener of the Charter for Compassion (www.charterforcompassion.org). I am having a lot of fun, and it is great to connect with people from across the region and across various sectors of our community, including business leaders, politicians, academics, religious leaders, social entrepreneurs and the ever present ‘movers and shakers’.

What struck me for our purposes last evening during one of Karen’s speeches was how surprised she has been by business leaders to the Charter. She told a story of one business person in Pakistan who has done amazing work in enhancing compassion in the workplace and in society generally. I was also reminded of the work of the Global Alliance on Banking with Values (www.gabv.org) who have been making very healthy returns by all metrics by working through what some might call “soft” values like respect, dignity and environmental sustainability.

As I’ve been reflecting on this, I’m less surprised than Karen. As business leaders we recognize that the planet is exponentially smaller than it was even a generation ago. We are far closer to a global village than perhaps Marshall McLuhan even imagined.  The inextricable links in our financial system are but one aspect of this emerging village. And what did our ancestors discover was key to surviving a shrinking world? Well, in the shrinking world, we are prone to what has been called a cycle of violence. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Girard)  It looks like this, if I cause you some pain, then you’ll want to cause me some pain, and so we go round and round; you punch me, I punch you back, so you have to punch me, so I have to punch you back, so you then kick me thinking that will fix the problem, but no, I kick you harder, and to teach you a lesson, I also push you down and so you need to kick, push and then throw a bag over me… you see how this works. This kind of behavior, inevitably leads to catastrophe. And so our ancestors began to work out that the way out of this catastrophic cycle was collaboration, compassion, and forgiveness. And the emerging global village is not different.

So this week, think about a workmate, a colleague, a friend, or a family member with whom you have had a long standing conflict or point of friction. What could you change in your behavior that would change things for the better? How could you rethinking collaboration, compassion and forgiveness might actually make a difference in your life and theirs?