Now What? Stop Doing > Return to Being

Now What? At the end of any intense period of life this question confronts us? You may have recently been laid off, completed a huge project, closed a big deal, sent your child off to college, or suffered any number of major life dislocations. The periods preceding these life events can often be so defining or consuming that their absence leaves a troubling void.

How should we react during these personal voids? This much is certain; how we respond during such voids determines the course of our remaining life. We can wallow in pity, or we can make them times of rejuvenation that restore and prepare us for what lies ahead. The key is using this respite from doing to return to being. Let me suggest three phases for responding to a void in our lives.

Remember — Return to your core purpose for living. Remind yourself of the guiding principles upon which you have chosen to order and direct your life, family or business. This will likely involve investing significant time in rereading and revisiting passages, people and places that have previously inspired you. Set aside a private space for this remembering time. This is a great time to write out (or update) a personal mission statement.

Reflect — Significant people reflect on the past to learn from it, not wallow in it. Condemnation is unhealthy. Convictions are empowering. Evaluate where your recent life/work aligned with or wandered away from your guiding principles. Identify triggering events or behaviors that helped you stay aligned or caused you to wander off the track. Examine each relationship in your life and ask whether that relationship challenges and encourages the fulfillment of your purpose or distracts from it. Reflect (and possibly even solicit input) on the impact my life has had on others. It is impossible to over emphasize the value of capturing your reflects in writing. Making time to write down what you’ve learned both crystallizes that learning in your own heart and mind and also creates an invaluable resource for Remembering during future life voids. On a personal note, this blog is one of the ways I am recording that thought process in my own life.

Renew — At this point in the thought process we should face forward and ask the following three questions in my core being and each major role in my life:

  1. What am I committed to continue?
  2. What should I eliminate, quit or stop?
  3. Where do I want to learn, grow or start?

Apply each question to your private world (body, mind and spirit) and every role in the public world; such as, spouse, parent, sibling, friend, neighbor, citizen, volunteer, student, profession, or employee/employer, etc.

I’d like to give a shout out to @JonStallsmith for his talk on Nehemiah 8-10 from which arose the core ideas in this blog post.

What Characterizes a Person of Integrity?

Integrity is one of those common words we may use without ever stopping to ponder what it means. We instinctively have a strong sense that integrity is a good thing; so it’s an attribute of human character worthy of effort, but how do I attain it.

I never found a definition that satisfied all the elements central to a full understanding of integrity; so a number of years ago I wrote my own:

“Integrity is the reliably consistent alignment of what I believe, think and do and the highest objective standards of morality”

Let’s unpack that definition starting with the back “…what I believe, think, and act and the highest objective standards of morality.” There are four elements to integrity:

  1. External. What I do. My public life. Observable words and actions both in terms of commission and omission in various situations; after all, sometimes the right thing to do is nothing.
  2. Internal. Who I am. My private life. My mind, will and emotions. Some call this the human spirit. This includes all the doubts and fears with which I may wrestle but not expose to the outside world.
  3. Metaphysical. What I believe. This may be an explicit and conscious set of beliefs, or it may be your subconscious internal compass of right and wrong (your conscience). Some call this the human soul.
  4. Supernatural. What is Right and True. This standard exists apart from me as an individual and serves as an arbiter of right versus wrong. [As an aside, this fourth element may make some of you uncomfortable. You may believe it inappropriate to pass moral judgments across peoples and cultures and struggle with the notion of an objective right and wrong. Consider this…Absent this fourth element, one could claim that the individuals who planned and executed the 9/11 attacks on the USA were individuals of integrity. The incredibly tight alignment among their beliefs, thoughts and actions led them to sacrifice their very lives. They made this fateful decision based on a powerful belief in the rightness of their position. Attempts to argue that their actions were wrong starts one down a logical path of right versus wrong.]

Random or occasion alignment of these four elements do not produce integrity. We must combine all four elements in a “…reliably consistent alignment… ”

Without a reliably consistent alignment among these four elements I will experience the draining and damaging effects of internal turmoil. I am weakened emotionally. The pressure erodes my passion and siphons off my stamina. Sustained internal misalignment will eventually damage my physical and emotional health.

Externally, an unreliable or inconsistent alignment among these four elements produces collateral damage to my relationships. Not only does my inconsistency hurt others, but the rebound effect makes my life a bigger struggle. The blowback also shapes my reputation as someone unpredictable and inconsiderate. The multiplying effect of my reputation makes every subsequent interaction more difficult than necessary.

On the positive side, a reliability consistent alignment unleashes and leverages the power of alignment.

When we nurture and exercise our own inherent talents we act in concert with who we are as a person. We naturally and more easily perform at a high level. We feel joy in our labors, because we are doing work we were designed to do. We receive invigorating affirmation from others that inspires us to greatness and sustains us through difficult times. We experience a wholeness that breeds contentment.

If we take integrity to the ultimate level and align ourselves with “the highest objective standards of morality”, we place ourselves in alignment with God-ordained Natural Laws. We suffer less heartache and harm. Our behaviors yield fruitful outcomes. We enjoy mutually fulfilling relationships. We are producers (givers) and not solely consumers (takers); yet we can humbly receive without guilt.

At a practical level building integrity involves regularly expose your mind to Truth (for me that’s the Bible) to erase errors that creep into your life from the imperfect world and renew your mind around right thinking. Consider writing a personal mission statement that reflects Truth and your uniqueness as a human being. Regularly assess and realign your beliefs, thoughts and actions to your mission statement.

Plants & the 5 E’s of Building Effective Teams

Seeds contain the information necessary to germinate, grow and reproduce. However, absent the amounts of soil, air, water, and sunlight most appropriate for that species, the seed may fail at any point along its maturation cycle. We can reduce the risk of failure and multiply the eventual yield by preparing the soil, planting at an appropriate time, cultivating the field during the growth phase and harvesting at the most opportune time. These external factors do not change the basic capabilities of the seed; however, they will heavily influence the quality and quantity of the harvest.

This intelligent design from nature provides us a wonderful example for building effective teams. Akin to the information encoded in seeds, the people on your team bring to any effort certain raw talents and capabilities. Similarly, certain external environmental elements of the organizational culture will influence whether individuals flounder or flourish.

My leadership experience has distilled five environmental elements leaders must provide to build effective teams.

1. EXPECTATIONS. At the broadest level, we establish expectations by painting our vision and defining the mission for the organization. At the project or team level, we define success in terms of desired outcomes. In other words, we identify where we’re going without getting into “how” the team should accomplish those objectives. Equally important, we set boundaries for acceptable behaviors in terms of the values and culture which will define the character of the team.

2. EQUIP. Provide the resources necessary to achieve the expectations. These resources commonly fall into four buckets

  • Talents – Staff the team with the necessary blend of talents; identify other resources (such as subject matter experts) available to the team
  • Tools – Allocate suitable amounts of money, equipment, space, software, etc.
  • Techniques – Define and inculcate reusable standard methods and processes into the daily habits of the organization; particularly around problem solving and reporting
  • Training in the skills needed to effectively leverage the available tools and techniques

3. ENABLE. Emotionally prepare the team for the challenge. This emotional element is crucial for building self-reliant teams that are not constantly running back to you for guidance or encouragement. Effective emotional preparation addresses at least these three components:

  • Define success so people know it when they see it. Defining success establishes a built-in course correction mechanism that allows the team to adapt to the inevitable surprises of any human endeavor
  • Clarify why it’s important to get there. Understanding not just “what” (the expectations) but “why” equips the team to deal with ambiguity which arises in the course of the journey. Whenever possible anchor “why” messages to the broader organization’s vision and mission.
  • Explain the challenge (“what will it take”). Understanding the scope and scale of the challenge prepares team members to mentally and physically calibrate themselves for the journey. This is especially true if the challenge will impose upon their private lives. Anyone who’s done open road running or cycling knows the frustrations of struggling to reach the crest of the rise only to discover the hill continues.

4. EMPOWER. The crucial element of empowerment is transferring ownership for the objective. Ownership involves two elements—transferring authority and establishing accountability. Transferring authority to accomplish the objective(s) means transferring relevant decision-making. If you’ve effectively defined expectations, the team will already know the measures of accountability, but also establishing the method of accountability (when and how the team reports on its progress) creates a healthy transparency and makes interventions an exception. If you find your team frequently seeking guidance or clarification, look first to your ineffectiveness in enabling, equipping and setting expectations.

5. EMBRACE. Once you have empowered the team be available but resist the natural urge to jump in and start dictating solutions. These disempowering actions will rapidly deflate the team and make you the chokepoint. Remain resolute. Adversity will come. Expect it and commit to remain in a coaching mode. Spend more time questioning and listening than talking (take a lesson from the LEAN leader practice of going to the gemba). It is important to display consistency in your behaviors, because unpredictability will undermine your credibility.

10 Transformative Acts of Human Dignity

I find it an interesting dichotomy that some social ideas can be both widely known and widely misunderstood.

Turn the other cheek. “Not me,” you say. “I have no plans to let someone else take advantage of me. I won’t tolerate any mistreatment.” But, is allowing someone else to abuse me and then ask for more what Jesus meant?

In His famous Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught a series of transformational behaviors; including this one “…if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” As with any illustration, it is important to understand the social context of the example. In the society of Jesus’ day people used their left hand for unclean acts associated with daily care and therefore never used their right hand in public. So, in order to smite someone on the right cheek, the offender delivering the blow had to strike the other person with the back of the right hand. This act was a power move designed to communicate or force submission. The act of turning the other check says to the offender, “I’m here. I’m ready. If you want to go any further, you will have to treat me as an equal.”

In the same passage from the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus used another illustration, “And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles.” According to the laws of the day, the soldiers enforcing Rome’s rule could require local inhabitants to carry their armor for a mile. That second mile meant, “You can make me carry that load for the first mile, but I’m going this second mile by an act of my own will. My sense of self-worth is intact.”

The Civil Rights movement in this country provides a more recent illustration of this transformative power where non-violent expressions of human dignity forced the culture to accept blacks as equals.

One of the sad legacies of the Industrial Age is the dehumanizing nature of modern corporations. These larger organizations force people into increasingly narrow and repetitive roles that dull the mind and sap the spirit. Large organizations also give rise to bloated bureaucracies and a stifling conformity imposed by reams of rules and policies. We can either respond to these unhealthy environments by descending into the petty mindset of a victim or react from a well-spring of self-dignity.

Many articles and books on organizational or cultural change focus on the role of the leader. I don’t want to minimize that vital responsibility, but always waiting for the leader is a victim mindset. The transforming power of human dignity compels us to ask, “What can I do to change this situation.”

One of the distinguishing elements of the lean enterprise philosophy is respect for people. This is not just about managers respecting employees or employees respecting those in organizational authority but a culture of multilateral respect. We cannot have a healthy and genuine respect for others unless we first respect ourselves. Absent self-respect our thoughts in any circumstance quickly turn toward our own needs and hurts. We evaluate every action in light of its impact on us. We harbor resentment from slights that offend us. We respond with a vengeful spirit that destroys respect and relationships.

One of the intriguing quirks of humans is our ability to behave our way into a new way of believing. So, rather than attempting to determine what motivates me and the others around me, I encourage you to begin behaving with human dignity. The power of the following ten simple acts to transform a family, a team, a company or a community will amaze you.

  1. We fulfill our responsibilities
  2. We volunteer to help others
  3. We identify and solve problems
  4. We defend the weak
  5. We give of our time and money to help others
  6. We show up on time out of appreciate the value of others’ time
  7. We resist the urge to lash out in revengeful responses
  8. We honor our commitments
  9. We take care of our bodies with proper nutrition, rest and exercise
  10. We acknowledge the limits of self-reliance and associate in community for a richer and more productive life experience