The Case for Curiosity

Analytics-driven 'nudges' (short, science-backed suggestions) may be one of the more intriguing additions to the managerial canon in the past decade. Deceptively simple, instantaneous, and effective complements to offsites, 'training' classes, coaching, and traditional adult-learning approaches of old, we really saw nudges proliferate and excel in the past couple years because they work so dang well in hybrid workplaces with black holes and long yawns between employee get-togethers.
Humu does a nice job analyzing, articulating, automating, app-ing, and altogether 'animating' the behavioral science upon which nudging is predicated, and I have particular respect for advisors Amy Wrzesniewski and Adam Grant, if only because I'm most familiar with their work&mdash;and much of their advice, predictions, and plans fall firmly in the camp of 'Works'!
One personal hope I have for the coming couple years (as this pandemic shifts into endemic status) is that MUCH of what we've learned from the Great Resignation about disconnection, fatigue, full-on burnout, neuroscience-informed management, diversity-inclusion-equity, employee engagement, corporate culture, communicating-leading-influencing from afar, hybrid leadership, empathy, emotions and feelings, mental health, and all the rest will NOT fade away but, rather, be refined, carried forward, democratized, and consumed in sustainable, tailorable, 'best practice' sorts of ways easily woven into the DNA of organizations regardless their size, style, or stripe. Here's to hoping, right? Of this, I am certain: Drucker would be delighted, as he was&mdash;if nothing else&mdash;a ferociously unapologetic advocate for breaking and abandoning ANY status quo in favor of WHATEVER WORKS BETTER. He was a no-nonsense pragmatist above all, and because 'nudging' works with nary a sweat bead, he'd be fanatical about its base science, its analytics, and finding new and better ways of wedding nudges to every leader's and employee's work-world experience.
Work Rules! by Humu CEO Laszlo Bock, Richard Thaler's Nudge, Lisa Kepinski's Inclusion Nudges, Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow and Noise, Grant's Think Again, and James Clear's Atomic Habits&nbsp;are great nudgy primers, and this&nbsp;<a href="https://www.humu.com/blog/the-5-nudges-that-helped-managers-most-in-2021" target="_blank" rel="noopener">accompanying article</a> provides a glimpse into what nudges worked well for managers in 2021. (Yale School of Management published anticipated/possible nudges for 2022 on Jan 11th, so hunt for that if curious enough.)
Our collective, immediate future is likely to be as AMBIGUOUS &amp; UNCERTAIN as the past couple years were COMPLICATED, so maybe you'll find nudges an easy addition to your leader toolbelt&mdash;things you can do regularly and with minimal effort in the 'here and now,' as concepts like 'next week, month, or quarter' may feel psychological lifetimes away.

The Science of Nudging in Leadership

I read a constructive post earlier today by Emotional Intelligence thought leader Daniel Goleman and thought perhaps you'd appreciate it as much as I did.
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Positive Outlook: Optimism is a Choice
How many times has a &ldquo;setback&rdquo; led to a positive opportunity?
According to research, 86% of U.S. adults say the coronavirus will lead to important lessons for humanity. These range from practical lessons, such as handwashing; to personal lessons, such as grasping the importance of our family and loved ones; to societal lessons, like the value of social-emotional learning or universal health care.
This ability&mdash;to see the good in an inherently challenging situation&mdash;is the Emotional Intelligence competence called Positive Outlook. One of four self-management competencies in [Goleman&rsquo;s] framework of emotional intelligence, Positive Outlook refers to our ability to see the best in people, situations, and events. When people have Positive Outlook they:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>See the &ldquo;glass half full&rdquo;</li>
<li>Cultivate positive emotions in challenging moments</li>
<li>Pursue their goals no matter what life throws their way</li>
<li>Focus on what&rsquo;s working</li>
<li>See the best in themselves and others</li>
<li>Leverage strengths in order to solve problems and create productive outcomes</li>
</ul>
Positive Outlook is a prerequisite for effective leadership.
On a team level, Positive Outlook leads to higher levels of engagement, lower levels of conflict, and greater overall effectiveness. Part of this has to do with &ldquo;emotional contagion&rdquo;&mdash;when people in power dictate the mood of everyone around them.

Positive Outlook

Today a client asked for some possible images to express a recent idea he had. "Can you show me some 'ferocious' movie men, maybe?"
"Ferocity? Yessir, we can do that."
"And tenacious, determined."&nbsp;Right. Got it.
Fun assignment, up the proverbial alley.
In fact, I had just been talking with someone the other day about a few of these. Childhood memories, many of them.
There are some cool, nostalgic items here.&nbsp;
I only wish we'd had more than an hour (there are so many gems!), but he did say these succeeded at getting the incubatory idea across the ol' finish line.
Ooh Rah!
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&ldquo;I&rsquo;m gonna take this right foot, and I&rsquo;m gonna whop you on that side of your face, and you wanna know something? There&rsquo;s not a damn thing you&rsquo;re gonna be able to do about it.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Quickly as you can, snatch the pebble from my hand.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t mess with the bull, young man; you&rsquo;ll get the horns!&rdquo;
&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t think you can take us all.&rdquo; &ldquo;No, but I&rsquo;ll get an &lsquo;A&rsquo; for effort.&rdquo;
&ldquo;I want you to be nice, until it&rsquo;s time to not be nice.&rdquo;
&ldquo;Nothing like a good piece of hickory.&rdquo;
&ldquo;On the bloody morning after, one tin soldier rides away.&rdquo;

"Ferocity? Yessir, we can do that."

Ego, "the 'I' that distinguishes us from others," including "our self-esteem and self-image," but also "our conceit and self-importance" is a tricky, tricky&nbsp;beast.&nbsp; A devil on our shoulder, a gremlin in the machinery.
On the one hand, it is necessary, essential.&nbsp; Without it, we are paper dolls, folded by the least life has to offer or brings our way.&nbsp; But too much of it and we are rigid, always right, enrobed in our self-righteousness and sense of entitlement or destiny.
In its extremes<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;too much and too little<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;it is&nbsp;as easy to spot as the peacock.&nbsp;
Too Little, Exhibit A: The abused, who apologizes for her abuse.
Too Much, Exhibit A:&nbsp;The tyrant, whose way is the only way.
In between, we find a&nbsp;diorama of figurines, from the insecure who, like the puffer fish, make themselves appear larger than they really are as an act of self-protection.&nbsp; Or bullies,&nbsp;the&nbsp;hyenas of humankind, who identify those whom they perceive as a step slower or out of sync with the herd, catching them alone at the watering hole or in a wild turn on an open field.&nbsp; Or the indignant.&nbsp; Or&nbsp;sometimes even martyrs, who originally felt called to champion a cause in someone else's name, or on behalf of others, but who&nbsp;may lose their way once they close their ears and become tone-deaf to the changing landscape or situation at hand.
There are dozens and dozens of archetypes smeared across&nbsp;our little&nbsp;stage, each of us&nbsp;having played many such parts in the course of our life.
I see it every day; we all do.&nbsp; For all his "honesty" and "straight talk," Donald Trump is periodically behaving&nbsp;rather badly: mean, divisive, sometimes employing hateful speech that borders on bullying, leaving very little room for the gray of life and which is, to my way of thinking at least, sexist, racist, superior, bigoted.&nbsp; I'm as ready as the next guy for a transparent leader, for spin-free and politics-free zones.&nbsp; Gosh, our country needs&nbsp;this desperately.&nbsp; We are lost; marooned.&nbsp;&nbsp;There is no America, just islands, camps, tribes, parties, factions, lobbyists, separatists.&nbsp; And Trump's absolutely&nbsp;right: political&nbsp;correctness can be a blight.&nbsp; But to lump entire people into&nbsp;categories, to deride said&nbsp;categories, to marginalize others, to be dismissive about what Warren Buffett succinctly describes as "the lottery of birth" (having been blessed, due to grace or chance alone, to be born in the United States or any progressive country) is absolute foolishness.&nbsp; Trump's&nbsp;name is so fitting, because his ego trumps everything.&nbsp; He appears to believe that he is right about everything and is equally intolerant of&nbsp;contrary opinions.&nbsp; I cannot fathom the circus his governance style would&nbsp;create.&nbsp;&nbsp;As much as people might like it&nbsp;to be&nbsp;the case, government does not operate like business.&nbsp; There are times I&nbsp;absolutely wish it did, but our government is a legislative democracy, not an autocracy or private venture or profitably oriented enterprise with shareholders and so, on the face of it, his approach will always be unsuitable.&nbsp; We need a statesman or stateswoman, but one who can, in fact, effect change to create unity, whether through the next figurative moonshot or something else larger than partisan politics.
But he is not alone, for if we are not careful, and when we are our worst selves rather than our best selves,&nbsp;a great many of us could be castigated for our example.&nbsp; It's not just politicians who believe they are above the law, or professional athletes, or celebrities.&nbsp; No, in&nbsp;a world that Andy Warhol would have loved, we are each enticed to create, proliferate, and maintain a cult of personality, be it through Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or&nbsp;Tumblr or wherever.&nbsp;&nbsp;
And the irony is not lost on this writer,&nbsp;who named a company after himself.
But we shall get to that.
Whether we lack ego, and&nbsp;forfeit ourselves to others' pleasures or dominion, or overcompensate for our shortcomings by bullying, or believe we are the smartest person in the room...chosen, designated, called, destined, whatever...and adopt a narrow-minded and "me-centric" worldview, we all fall short.
When things must be our way, or our way is the only way, or our way is the right way, well,&nbsp;one's world becomes very tiny indeed.&nbsp; It is inclusion, involvement, collaboration,&nbsp;diversity, delegation,&nbsp;even situationally appropriate submission that&nbsp;returns oxygen to the room, enlarges the table, leads to variety and better ideas and more amazing outcomes.
The "heroic manager" (be it a command-and-control throwback to 1955 or Steve Jobs himself in his early days before his dismissal and wandering in the desert which led to contrition)&nbsp;is a dying breed.&nbsp; I still stumble across it now and again, but even in the&nbsp;military, and paramilitary organizations, and the church itself<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;organizations which have every right to practice bureaucracy, considering they are among our oldest and were originally designed as hierarchies<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;I see&nbsp;autocratic management&nbsp;becoming all the more pass&eacute;.&nbsp; People are simply too aware, too educated, too empowered to abide it.
So where does this leave the leader?&nbsp; How does he or she strike the right balance, the right chord?&nbsp; How much ego is too little, and how much is too much?
As was put to me yesterday in conversation, "Perhaps like all things, Blake, it's a matter of moderation.&nbsp; One must constantly shift and find the right gear."
Well said.&nbsp; I couldn't agree more.
In hindsight, and with foresight, this is true.&nbsp; There are certainly issues in life which are black and white, but it is also true that most are quite complicated, and with complication comes&nbsp;different perspectives on&nbsp;the same issues, alternative paths up and out and, therefore, a whole lotta gray.
Among others, which are arguably too esoteric or spiritual for a business blog, two northern stars which have often guided my own sensibilities are derivatives of The Golden Rule and&nbsp;The Craftsman's Pride.
Regarding the former, I often ask myself, "In this situation, how would I want someone to treat my daughter?&nbsp; If she were to come home and share this scenario with me, to describe others' treatment of her, how would I feel about that, about them, about her behavior in this situation?&nbsp; And what would I do if the shoe were on the other foot...if I was 'the jerk' in her story?"&nbsp; It is true: only at my best am I so enlightened, but it's a star nonetheless, one which usually compels me to pause, to breathe deep, to ponder, and which later convicts me to re-think my ego, stance, position, or sense of self-righteousness or indignation.
Regarding the latter, a craftsman's pride, the company is called Leath Group because we are a group.&nbsp;&nbsp;And foremost, one that stands behind&nbsp;its work<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;so much so that we are willing to sign our name to it, like a silversmith or cobbler of old who put his initials on the bottom of his&nbsp;wares or inside a pair of boots he'd lovingly stitched.&nbsp; It's not&nbsp;ego behind the name, its personalization and accountability and a nod to simpler times.&nbsp; We could have named ourselves ACME Inc. or Consortium Consulting but, honestly, I prefer buying from Jim or Bob or Steve, not some faceless conglomerate, and so we began our work in that vein, and it stuck.
Our ethos, however, which may fly in the face of our branding<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;and gosh, I hope it does not<span style="line-height: 107%; font-family: 'Calibri',sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA;">&mdash;is generally one of anonymity.&nbsp; We are, at our core, creators and cultivators commissioned to plant and grow something small which, if successful,&nbsp;becomes our client's, not our own.&nbsp; Like any parent, our ultimate success and joy&nbsp;are best revealed in the well-being of our child.&nbsp; Try as we might, there are always genetics and internal/external forces beyond our control with which we must contend, but we strive mightily to be good examples, good role models, and to love unconditionally and without bias.&nbsp; To create great work products, deliver great services, then let them go.
Along the way, whether one is a politician, business leader, military leader, church leader, parent, you name it, one is constantly shifting gears while also remaining consistent and directed and pulled toward a northern star.&nbsp; This creates the much needed sense of stability, for oneself and others, while also fostering adaptability, malleableness, suppleness to bend in the wind without breaking.
To know oneself, one's strengths and weaknesses, and to be confident in his or her being, while also being willing to become invisible when it is the right thing to do, or to take the reins and grab the mic and take the stage when it is the right thing to do is precisely the shifting of gears that I'm describing.&nbsp; And as you know from personal experience, there is no rulebook, it is often gray, and it requires a deft touch, an ability to read the room and the situation, and the courage to vanish or show-up and absolutely represent.
Sometimes, it even requires we, as told to me by a former mentor, "Know when to lay it down and walk away."
I find, and perhaps you'll agree, that sometimes "the I" that is in each of us can become an Idol.&nbsp;&nbsp;Or, something that we do, or are, or perceive we stand for can become idolatrous because it means too much to us, it defines us, is addictive to us, or we cannot walk away from it when we should.&nbsp; We become obstinate, intractable, stubborn; we cannot let it go.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Consider these examples, all of which are complicated and have 50/50 sides:
If the day came, weeks or months from now, that Donald Trump found himself unsupportable or unelectable as the Republican nominee, would he fade quietly into the sunset, returning to his enterprises, supportive of those who remain, or would he bash the remaining and perhaps choose to run Independent, thereby splintering the country further and weakening his professed party in the process?&nbsp; In his rulebook, what comes first: self or the greater good?&nbsp; And what is right?&nbsp; Is there a right?
If a County Clerk found herself in violation of the Supreme Court's ruling and refused to issue marriage licenses to&nbsp;same-sex couples, should she stand her moral ground or yield to public opinion and let someone else do the job?&nbsp; What is right in this situation, who determines it, and what's the proper gear for the terrain?&nbsp; These are thorny issues for our Republic, the sort that define church, state, and the separation thereof.
If a hygienist in a dentist's office found herself to be the source of division and gossip, should she walk away for the health and betterment of the practice, or remain?&nbsp; Should she be loyal to the hand that feeds her, or loyal to her own personal convictions, cause, and sense of justice or injustice?&nbsp;
If a corporation becomes a cult of personality, or is represented in the public sphere by a spokesperson who generates hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue then does bad things in his or her personal life, should this person remain the spokesperson?&nbsp; What is the cost of collateral damage, the price of&nbsp;a corporate soul, and how does&nbsp;an organization&nbsp;tally it?&nbsp; There is a sea of examples to represent this conundrum, from Evel Knievel and Ideal Toys to Tiger Woods and Nike.&nbsp;
In each of these scenarios, one's ego is relevant.&nbsp; The candidate, the clerk, the employee, the representative: each&nbsp;is forced by circumstance to&nbsp;take stock, every conceivable&nbsp;path forward&nbsp;having gray alleys and obstacles, each alternative leading to personal consequences, some of which result in more or less polarization and none of which are simple, easy, or politically unambiguous.
In David Simon's HBO miniseries, Show Me a Hero, Yonkers' mayor Nich Wasicsko initially finds himself victorious, largely because of an unpopular political issue, public housing, which creates an opportunity for him to be the alternative candidate and steal the race.&nbsp; Two years later, the same thing happens to him, and for six more years he pursues the idol of political fame and purpose, repeatedly falling short and, rather than simply walking away and starting a legal practice, he clings to the past, fails to see it for what it was, becomes chronically depressed, and takes his own life standing at his father's grave during the week of his final election loss.&nbsp; It is a searing, heartbreaking story; a Greek tragedy of epic proportion, but set rather intimately in the fourth most populous city in the state of New York.
Kenny Rogers crooned, "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, and know when to run."&nbsp; It's good advice, and we only wish the gears were thusly labeled.&nbsp; They are often inscrutable, caked in mud, clogged with debris from life's trails, and impossible to free.
I have walked away, and I have doubled down.&nbsp; I've won some, and lost many more.&nbsp; There were rarely buzzing, directional neon signs pointing the way; it was often a sense of intuition that necessitated a light touch (which is in contrast to being grabby-grabby, like the raccoon in Where the Red Fern Grows who won't release the shiny silver object within the log and gets scooped up by Billy and placed in a burlap sack).&nbsp; The illusions of power, of control are precisely that, as Anthony Hopkins&nbsp;reminds Cuba Gooding, Jr. in 1999's Instinct.&nbsp; 
Most everyone learns this lesson, eventually.&nbsp; Our sense of importance, of power, they can become idols in our heart, things which&nbsp;over-inflate our sense of self, distracting us from what is right,&nbsp;or pure,&nbsp;or good.&nbsp; Virtuous.
Left to one's own devices, he or she can lose sight of the big picture, or the long game, or the fact that our lives are but brief sparks, and legacy casts the longer shadow.
So stand for something, and be up for something, possessing a strong and firm foundation of ego that is not subject to whims, or peer pressure, or bullying, or popularity, or the transient in life like fad or fashion, but also be as selfless as possible, as modest and humble and quiet in spirit, knowing that one's works and craftsmanship and contributions to others and to causes greater than oneself are what matter far more, benefit multitudes more, and ultimately lead to greater peace, fulfillment, and contentment in this world.
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Ego: Destroyer of Worlds

Public Speaking, Stage Fright, and Beyond

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<div class="_uaw clearfix _uaw" style="text-align: left;">&ldquo;You just have to decide whether you are Tigger or Eeyore.&nbsp;&nbsp;You have to be clear where you stand on the Tigger/Eeyore debate.&rdquo;</div>
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Ten months before succumbing to pancreatic cancer at age 47, Carnegie Mellon&rsquo;s Randy Pausch made it clear where he stood on the Tigger/Eeyore debate in his final lecture, which ultimately sold 4 &frac12; million copies in the U.S. alone when committed to paper as The Last Lecture.&nbsp; The runaway bestseller has now been translated into 46 languages. 
 It seems the world loves Tigger, in part because he&mdash;like each of us at our very best&mdash;bounces rather than breaks.&nbsp; He&rsquo;s the ultimate proprietor of the proverbial lemonade stand, always making the very best from the worst life has to offer.
 In a world besotted with news, soundbytes, spin and social media, we are similarly saturated in hyperbole and hysteria, much of it negative.&nbsp;&nbsp;It&rsquo;s difficult to turn on and tune in without soon wishing to tune out.&nbsp; Terrorism, &ldquo;fearbola,&rdquo; the long tail of 2008, Congressional gridlock, wars without end, crime, thoughtlessness, selfishness, shallowness&hellip;it&rsquo;s understandable that after prolonged exposure to virtually any newscast, one finds him or herself slowly devolving into Eeyore. 
 Be they good or bad, our attitudes and behaviors&mdash;like yawning and laughing&mdash;are often contagious, and all the more so when they are extreme.&nbsp; It&rsquo;s not the lukewarm and middlers who influence us most, it&rsquo;s the superstars and the slugs, the hot and the cold, the zealots and the absolutely catatonic who seem to motivate or demotivate us the most.&nbsp; The tiggers cajole, challenge and champion, often bringing out our best, while the eeyores serve as cautionary tales, reminding us what happens when one loses his passion, purpose or hope. 
 Any time one finds herself discouraged, daunted or down, it&rsquo;s helpful to consider &ldquo;The Six P&rsquo;s,&rdquo; each and every one of which was demonstrated by Pausch and admittedly run like an undercurrent throughout the entire philosophies of Pooh himself, but which you&rsquo;ll similarly find in any optimistic archetype, from Terry Fox and Viktor Frankl and King George VI and Helen Keller and Winston Churchill to Clara Barton and Rosa Parks and Abraham Lincoln and Susan B. Anthony and George Washington Carver and Teddy Roosevelt, who captured the sentiment of tiggerness so perfectly on April 23, 1910 when he spoke at the Sorbonnes in Paris, saying, in part:
&ldquo;It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.&nbsp; The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.&rdquo;
 Both optimism and pessimism are incontrovertibly contagious, but the former bolsters our immune system, while the latter simply makes us&mdash;and those around us&mdash;ill.&nbsp; But if one were to journey toward optimism, by what stars would he chart his course?&nbsp; Is there such a constellation?&nbsp; Indeed there is, as demonstrated by the aforementioned superstars, so many others like them, and enumerated here:
 1. Perspective. The primary difference between the dour and the dynamic is perspective.&nbsp; It is from perspective that we see the following flow. 
2. Proportion. When bad things happen, the pessimist (Eeyore) blows things out of proportion.&nbsp; The optimist (Tigger) keeps things in proportion. 
3. Pervasiveness. For the pessimist, one bad thing becomes universal, leaking and tainting everything it touches.&nbsp; The optimist partitions &ldquo;that one bad thing.&rdquo; 
4. Permanence. For the pessimist, bad things become lasting, while optimists see them for what they generally are: temporary. 
5. Personalization. Pessimists are blamers, waving their accusatory finger at others, and pointing out the window at those whom they perceive as responsible for their own problems.&nbsp; Optimists are owners, taking responsibility for their choices, the consequences, and staring in the mirror at the captain of their ship (or, as described in Invictus and recounted by Nelson Mandela day after day for the majority of his adult life, &ldquo;the captain of my soul&rdquo;). 
6. Power. Pessimists behave as if they are hapless and helpless victims to a buggy code that lost a zero or one somewhere along the way, while optimists assume control of their own software and rewrite it to achieve a new and better outcome.
&nbsp;
We do well to remember Tolstoy who wrote, &ldquo;Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself&rdquo; because, ultimately, regardless our role, each and every one of us is in charge of us&hellip;and is an influencer in his/her own right.&nbsp; A force for good, positivity and possibility, or for negativity, criticism or despair. 
 Far better, it seems, to be realistic, of course&mdash;but optimistically so.&nbsp; After all, the perils of pessimism are well-documented and undesirable all the way down the line.&nbsp; Doom and gloom may sell tickets and lather crowds, but they never win elections, rarely rally, and have a very poor track record for catalyzing communities or companies toward any sustainable change or culture.
 But Pausch, or Tigger himself, why, they seem to have tails so springy and levers so long that&mdash;time and again&mdash;the world is moved.
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*** Please forgive any errors, omissions or abruptness; this post was conceived around midnight, completed on an iPhone, and uploaded while being jostled in line at TGI Friday's in an airport. But I CHOSE to upload it nonetheless, so any shortcomings are mine and mine alone.
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The Perils of Pessimism & The Power of Positivity

For
this gorgeous Friday, I have four diverse quotes comin&rsquo; at ya&hellip;each of which, I
hope, speaks to the true heart of leadership, which is service.




&ldquo;If
anyone wants to be first, he must be the very last, and the servant of all.&rdquo;&nbsp; (Mark
9:35)




&ldquo;Everybody
can be great, because anybody can serve.&nbsp; You don&#39;t have to have a college
degree to serve.&nbsp; You don&#39;t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve.&nbsp; You
only need a heart full of grace.&nbsp; A soul generated by love.&rdquo;&nbsp; (MLK)




&ldquo;The
first responsibility of a leader is to define reality.&nbsp; The last is to say
&lsquo;thank you.&rsquo;&nbsp; In between the two, the leader must become a servant and a debtor.&nbsp; That sums up the progress of an artful leader.&rdquo;&nbsp; (Max DePree)




And
to these, one might add, &ldquo;To succeed, assume the responsibility to communicate.&nbsp; To fail, presume it is others&rsquo; obligation to understand.&rdquo;




* * *

Leadership = Service

This is no great revelation, of course, but I thought I would share this way of thinking about it because, for all i know, it might come up in a Performance Review you must give today.


It&#39;s not unlike the analogy of traveling eastward and, thousands of miles later, finding oneself in the west.&nbsp; 


Strengths work in a similar way.


That ability you have, that talent, that gift, that natural capacity that accompanies you so effortlessly...it can, when applied beyond its appropriate envelope, be a weakness.


Are you a great listener with no voice?


Are you a great speaker with no ears?


Are you&nbsp;a great visionary who lacks people skills?


Are you an insightful person who decides prematurely?


Are you a wonderfully gung-ho sort who bulldozes over people?


I don&#39;t know.


Maybe you are or maybe you aren&#39;t.


But the problem is you might not even know yourself.


It&#39;s often hardest to see ourselves.


For example, I &#39;think&#39; I know what I sound like when I speak.&nbsp; After all, I speak daily.&nbsp; But then I hear my recorded voice and shudder.&nbsp; &quot;Is that really ME?&nbsp; Yikes...&quot;


The same is often true of our strengths--we think we know them, we presume they work wonderfully for us...but perhaps we should step back, regularly seek feedback from others, and be cautious when red-lining our talents and abilities.


After all, the maxim, &quot;If some is good, more must be better&quot; ain&#39;t always true.


Too much medicine is poisonous.


Too much of most good things is debilitating.


Those strengths we possess, when used in moderation or appropriate situations, can be wonderful.


Just remember, they are circular, too.&nbsp; 


Perhaps David Banner said it best, &quot;You&nbsp;wouldn&#39;t like&nbsp;me when I&#39;m angry.&quot;&nbsp; True that.


Green is great, but even more so in small doses.

Strengths are Circular

Shared with&nbsp;me today by a very dear collaborator,&nbsp;several of us&nbsp;found this Civil War era love letter profoundly touching; and that&#39;s saying something--because a great many of these bygone letters are highly eloquent, moving and altogether romantic, either despite or because of the circumstances in which they were written. 


While most of our politicians are doing their best, it does seem as though they lose their way more often than they find it...bickering, grandstanding, politicking, posturing, oversimplifying, overcomplicating, spinning, subterfuging, zero-summing.&nbsp; And all, allegedly, under the guise of &#39;good faith negotiations&#39; and at the behest of&nbsp;some vague, amorphous electorate who issued&nbsp;an oft-invoked referendum on taxing and spending. 


Though I&nbsp;write&nbsp;tonight while Congress haggles over increasing the&nbsp;U.S. debt ceiling, leadership squabbles--and political ones--are timeless and unceasing.&nbsp; 


For this reason alone, I personally find Major Ballou&#39;s letter to his&nbsp;wife, Sarah, a great reminder&nbsp;of why patriots do what they do.&nbsp; Or should.&nbsp; 


It&#39;s a clarion call, indeed--or a North Star, or a lighthouse, or a touchstone or, at the very least, a glimmer that catches one&#39;s attention and brings his eyes back to the road. 


I&#39;m sure it will do the same for you: <a href="/blogging/file.axd?file=2011%2f7%2fMyVeryDearSarah.pdf">MyVeryDearSarah.pdf (141.70 kb)</a>

Major Sullivan Ballou's last letter to his beloved Sarah

Not quite, but my promise to you today is one of pithiness.
Of all the words that have been written about leadership, performance and the like...of all the 'ornamentation' we hang here and there to garnish the tree, it always comes down to this:
CONNECTION &amp; CONTRIBUTION within RELATIONSHIPS defined by TRUST.
End of story.&nbsp; Period.
We all desire a sense of connection--to others, to purpose.&nbsp; To make a difference, to contribute something.&nbsp; To buzz the work and get 'r done.&nbsp; To see, as Steve Jobs wrote, "a dent in the universe."
"I made that," the credit rolls...
If we can truly connect to someone and something--and be trusted to&nbsp;achieve worthwhile outcomes, life is good.
Don't believe me?&nbsp; Read any study, particularly longitudinal ones like Harvard's 70-year-old 'Happiness Study.'&nbsp; Or&nbsp;faster yet, ask an unemployed person why he or she is periodically depressed.&nbsp; "I'm drifting, untethered.&nbsp; I feel emasculated and small.&nbsp; I want to engage and provide and be counted."
Whether we look at it as a parent, sibling, child, employee, citizen...it makes no difference.
To reach our potential, to sing our song, to paint our masterpiece, to live life to the fullest--this organism requires connection and contribution within relationships defined by trust.
Now go get yourself some air, water, sunlight and soil.&nbsp; Plug-in and power-up.
And if or where you struggle, don't lose hope or give up the fight.
Even weeds find sunlight through concrete, and so&nbsp;do we.
Connect and contribute in even the smallest of ways and, like a spark in the night, the rest often takes care of itself.

An Entry to End Entries?

Several days ago while differentiating <a href="../../blog/post/leadership-the-university-poor-vs-great-leaders">Good vs. Poor Leaders</a>, I&nbsp;committed to write a bit more about leadership.&nbsp;
In keeping that&nbsp;commitment, allow me to share the following model which has proven helpful for&nbsp;several groups over the years.
&nbsp;
<div style="text-align: center;"><img style="width: 471px; height: 392px;" src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2010%2f8%2fLeadershipModel.jpg" alt="" width="564" height="565" /></div>
&nbsp;
Beyond 'arguably,' there are&nbsp;certainly a number of key&nbsp;leadership competencies&nbsp;unaccounted for here (like systems thinking and change), but we can dive into those another time.
What the model here does do, and simply, is capture 2 key axes, 4 diverse endpoints...and all this while reminding the leader&nbsp;the importance of stability.
Let's start with the 2 axes, Results and Relationships.&nbsp; 
Notionally, the premise of Results and Relationships (like Yin and Yang)&nbsp;alerts leaders to mind these two very unique yet interrelated dimensions.&nbsp;
On the one hand, great leaders have got to be adequate (or, more ideally, exceptional) relationship-builders.&nbsp; For those&nbsp;leaders&nbsp;who like to think programmatically, linearly or&nbsp;via 'building blocks,' understanding that he or she can build relationships in two ways often proves constructive.&nbsp;
For example, on the one hand, a leader can&nbsp;build and&nbsp;improve relationships by focusing on how he or she Collaborates with others.&nbsp; Collaborate is a&nbsp;straightforward word -- it means to "co-labor" or "work together."&nbsp; Two practical ways to think about this include: (1)People do not resist their own ideas and (2)People like to see their photo...or 'DNA' in the scrapbook.&nbsp; In short, to be a better leader, co-labor with others in ways that allow them to contribute and see their contributions.&nbsp; It's as simple as that, and yet a huge portion of the 'leadership population' does not operate this way.&nbsp; Instead, they place themselves at the center of everything, marginalizing those around them as grunts and missing tremendous opportunities to facilitate dialogue, contribution, better solutions and support.
A second way for a leader to build and improve relationships is through Communication.&nbsp;&nbsp;Here's a neat way to think about communication: (1)Awareness occurs through the senses, (2)Understanding occurs in the mind, (3)Belief occurs in the heart and (4)Behavior occurs through the hands.&nbsp; Pragmatically, this means&nbsp;more than time&nbsp;permits us to unpack today...but imagine a company that seeks to 'communicate' through posters in the cafeteria, name badges, mouse pads or screen savers.&nbsp;&nbsp;Will people be 'aware' of the company's&nbsp;direction?&nbsp; Perhaps.&nbsp; But will they integratively understand, believe and demonstrate that direction daily?&nbsp;&nbsp;It's doubtful.&nbsp; To improve the odds, the organization should learn to communicate in ways that involve people and breathe life into the ideologies by animating and modeling&nbsp;beliefs and behaviors.&nbsp; The Confucius maxim, "I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand" holds water.
But communication is about a lot more than 'spewing or sensing.'&nbsp; I believe that, as is the case our entire lives, we learn more by doing than seeing or hearing.&nbsp; Said more plainly, if you want to communicate effectively, involve another person in the decision-making or delegation of a task.&nbsp; (Like mathematics, you don't really know whether I understand the problem's nuances&nbsp;until I show my work.)&nbsp; And while I have you here, let me add one more morsel: Deciding and Delegating are two of our strongest methodologies for Developing people.&nbsp; Lots of leaders 'miss' this, making too many decisions themselves or seeing delegation as a way to clear their plate.&nbsp; This is a huge mistake.&nbsp; Instead, approach each task and ask yourself, "How can this serve as a developmental opportunity for someone else, too?"&nbsp; Then, draw&nbsp;others into the decision-making process or delegation loop purposefully.&nbsp; (The sign of a great leader is increasing irrelevance.&nbsp; The sign of a poor leader is unending dependence.&nbsp;&nbsp;Great parents&nbsp;teach this, starting with removing the training wheels.)&nbsp;
Continuing now, any leader must accomplish results.&nbsp; I have&nbsp;often viewed results as occurring&nbsp;across two common categories of activities, distinguishable along a scale of management and leadership.&nbsp; The teeter-totter image below should prove a helpful tool for your further&nbsp;consideration&nbsp;of this idea.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
<img style="width: 417px; height: 415px;" src="../../blogging/image.axd?picture=2010%2f8%2fL%26M.jpg" alt="" width="536" height="629" />
&nbsp;
At the core of the first model, though, are values &amp; ethics.&nbsp; These alone are an entire field of inquiry that Aristotle himself didn't finish pondering.&nbsp; One's own values and ethics&nbsp;warrant a lifetime of exploration and commitment.&nbsp; They&nbsp;unquestionably serve as our&nbsp;compass' True North position, without which we wander, wonder and succumb to all manner of&nbsp;mirages and temptations.
I&nbsp;know it's not true in the purest sense, but I have always been predisposed to believe that if it's easy or convenient, it's probably wrong.&nbsp;&nbsp;Those&nbsp;things in life which prove virtuous or right generally seem to be more difficult&nbsp;or inconvenient.&nbsp; Diet, exercise, discipline, meaningful communication, giving others the benefit of the doubt, turning the other cheek, being selfless, meeting others' expectations, checking one's work, proofreading, going slowly now to go faster later, saving money, finishing one's homework proactively rather than procrastinating, loving thine enemy, living a whole and undivided life (walking the talk), dying unto oneself, checking&nbsp;one's ego at the door, truly listening (vs. reloading), being creative rather than a revisionist....&nbsp; These are difficult things, and right.
In summary then, if you aspire to be a better leader, don't forget these 'minima:' Create better relationships through more purposeful collaboration and communication.&nbsp; Achieve results through a proper mixture of management and leadership.&nbsp; And all the while, drop your anchor deep into a stable, unchanging bedrock of consistent values and ethics.
Do these and you'll be more consciously-competent than half the leaders on the field.