Happy Accidents
I am just about half way through Volume Two of the Autobiography of Mark Twain. As I already stated in Acquired Skills it is an is an incredibly fascinating and tough read all at the same time. To be sure, the beloved humorist keeps the reader laughing as he discusses for an entire chapter about the fly being the only species that humans cannot devise a way to exterminate. When you think about the fly, that is true. But Twain also make us think with his anecdotes. One such anecdote is his discussion of accidents. Twain reminded us “There are no accidents, all things have a deep and calculated purpose; sometimes the methods employed by Providence seem strange and incongruous, but we have only to be patient and wait for the result: then we recognize that no others would have answered the purpose, and we are rebuked and humbled.” Twain calls these “happy accidents” in his autobiography. Some might call these luck, but really they are, as he defines them, accidents. Twain even defines accidents as being an event that happens at no fault or premeditated thought or action of someone else.
“There are those who imagine that the unlucky accidents of lifelife’s “experiences”are in some way useful to us. I wish I could find out how. I never know one of them to happen twice. They always change off and swap around and catch you on your inexperienced side.“
Mark Twain
When I began to think about it I could come up with accidents that have happened in my life that led to some incredible opportunities. I’ll bet you can too. Twain told the story of being in New Orleans and wanting to learn to be a steam boat pilot. He asked a captain who told him “no,” but then the captain developed pain in his body that kept him from being able to pilot. Long story short, he sat in the pilot’s house and supervise Twain piloting the boat for him. Thus, Twain became an apprentice, learned to pilot the steam ship, and became a steam boat pilot. Sure seems like a happy accident to me. In fact, that whole adventure started out with Twain accidentally finding $50 in the street! The great humorist and author taught us, “Name the greatest of all inventors. Accident.” Bob Ross taught us, “we don’t make mistakes, we just have happy accidents.” Happy accidents can give us a chance to improve or go down a new path. They are a chance to create something we didn’t even imagine before. Happy accidents can give us the opportunity to learn, a chance to grow, and a chance for you to look at new perspectives. They can turn something average into a happier thing.
Getting A Helper’s High
“People who feel good about the work they do are always looking for ways to contribute to the success of your organization.” When I read this tonight in Simple Truth #24, “People Who Produce Good Results Feel Good About Themselves” of Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways To Be A Servant Leader and Build Trust, Making Common Sense Common Practice, Ken Blanchardand Randy Conley I thought to myself, “Drop the mic!” Then at about that same moment I got this text from a client I had just facilitated an important event for tonight: “That was really neat and very special tonight. Thanks for all of your intentional work and planning to make such an awesome event!” That really made me feel good. I had produced the results they wanted.
I think they call this a “helper’s high.” As a person who considers himself a helper this is awesome. The brain released those feel-good chemicals called endorphins. I also felt gratitude which makes me want to do even better work for the organization, proving Blanchard’s and Conley’s points. We human beings have a basic need to know that we contribute, create value and can make a difference and effect change in our environment.
The Gift Of Feedback
You all know how the children’s fairytale The Emperor’s New Clothes ends…the emperor goes out with his new clothes which were allegedly invisible, and, of course, is naked. No one has the courage to tell the emperor he is naked until he comes to a little boy who says, “But he doesn’t have anything on!” It took the innocence of a child to make the emperor realize he had no clothes. In Simple Truth #23, “Servant Leaders Love Feedback” of Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways To Be A Servant Leader and Build Trust, Making Common Sense Common Practice, Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley told us the feedback is a gift and that servant leaders love feedback.
“Feedback is the breakfast of champions.”
~ Rick Tate
It’s curious to me that a lot of development and coaching centers around getting better at giving feedback to others, but we rarely focus on how to attract, receive, and use actionable feedback about ourselves; even though it’s in our own best interest to do so. The top performing people I know always ask for feedback. Getting actionable feedback is a skill, and the top performers excel because they are continually honing that skill. Feedback is data and when we have more data, we’re better positioned to respond to the world around us. In a culture where leaders ask for feedback there are broad practical and interpersonal benefits, including relationship building and employee engagement.
Learning From Action Not Abstraction
As a person who has lived six decades now, the world feels like a more perilous place. I don’t really think the modern world is any more dangerous than it was fifty or sixty years ago. I do, however, believe we are in a much more risk averse world today. I think a lot about whether this risk aversion is inhibiting children’s development of autonomy, competence, confidence, and resilience. Growing up on a farm I had many opportunities to test observations, to experiment and tinker, to fail and bounce back. Nothing was treated like a major risk, and I was not prevented from learning how to judge the truly dangerous, from the simply unfamiliar. Please know I am not in any way suggesting putting our children in harms way. I just worry we we are ensconcing children in a life of abstraction rather than action. I guess the old agriculture teacher in me will always believe in “learning by doing.” “Doing” always comes with some inherent risk. Riding a bike carries the inherent risk of falling off. Thank goodness we have not made it illegal to ride a bike.
Case in point; yesterday my son was telling about things he had done as a kid growing up on our farm and his girlfriend was amazed. She asked if I knew he was doing all that. Well, yes and no. Was he doing anything bad? No! Case in point: having been in North Carolina during the recent gas shortage, I saw firsthand all the stupid ways some people were hoarding gas. I can guarantee you my son understands why you don’t put gas in a trash bag lined trash can with no lid. Enough said! And, yes I did see that done. Somehow, last evening, the subject of putting pennies on a railroad track came up. My son’s girlfriend had never heard of doing that. What? She then went on to talk about having some of those pennies you get flattened in a machine at vacation destinations. What? That’s no souvenir. I’m not going to say whether we did or did not smash pennies on a railroad track last night, but those would be a souvenir she would never forget making. Besides just plain being fun, we need to let children grapple with a little bit of healthy risk. Doing so can help teach motor skills, develop confidence, and get our young scholars acquainted with the use of tools and some of the basic principles of science. Let’s add some action to all the abstraction.
The Second Generation
Everyone should feel satisfied and proud of the career they want to pursue. Our goal has always been for our son to make peace with his post-secondary education and career goals and, first and foremost, make himself proud. There has been quite a lot of research done studying the impact parents have on their children’s educational and career goals. I am really glad and proud of the work I have done in the policy arena to have career exploration be something that happens much earlier than the end of high school. Our young scholars need to be preparing for the next chapter of life—whether that’s higher education, industry training, directly into the workforce or another path much earlier. I also believe that parents have an influence, either positive or negative, on this. I began reflecting on this yesterday when standing outside my son’s summer internship at Cal-Maine Foods. I could not go in for bio-security reasons, but I was so proud that there stood two generations of Animal Science majors at two different universities – Purdue University and Murray State University. Check out our picture and here is the tweet I did in the moment:
I asked Heath if he ever felt any pressure from me to be an animal science major. He answered an emphatic “no.” He did say that I had set an example because of how proud I was of having gone to Purdue and received degrees in both Animal Science and Agricultural Education. He also knows the story well of how I ended up being an agriculture science teacher and working in education my entire career. If you don’t know that story, click here. Heath also talked about all the experiences growing up on a working farm gave him. Home is where thinking ahead, dreaming big and setting goals can become normalized activities and allow all those skills to be available to our children when they come to the forks in the road. The earlier the conversations start, the better prepared they’ll be to make the best choice when that moment arrives. It’s not about applying pressure, but about being a model of making life choices that match passions and purpose.
Rule Follower Or Rule Breaker
Last night I was doing a kickoff event for month long set of professional development and training gatherings I am doing for a marquee client of mine. Part of this work will be done in person and part virtually so participants were sent a box with everything they need for the virtual portion. In the box we put a sheet explaining a few things that needed to be done and included this statement: “Please wait to peruse the items in the box.” I loved this statement that the person who is leading this project for the client used because it really invoked two behaviors, from two different kinds of people: rule followers and rule breakers. So, in a quick ice-breaker/get-to-know you activity I decided to find out who was who. Amazingly, my little research project came out pretty close to some research I found. About 14% of the participants answered my question of what in the box intrigued you the most with, “I’m a rule follower and can’t answer that.” To be clear, the research I referenced had five rules to follow and only 15% followed all five rules, but you get the point. Everyone else had some item to answer the question with. Now, let me say I’m not real concerned, but I’m always intrigued by people identifying themselves as rule followers. So, I decided to pursue this a little.
But, what I did find was that our willingness to follow rules is a valuable resource for society. We know that people will follow rules even when they don’t understand the purpose, but individuals are more likely to follow the rules when they believe the rule is being followed by others. This is why it is so important to in some way highlight or showcase rules being followed. I still find it fascinating that people often identify themselves as being either rule followers or rule breakers, and both with equal degrees of pride. Everyone knows people who have a strong inclination to follow whatever rules have been set up. Everyone also knows people whose tendency is to ignore rules. In reality we probably need both. The rule follower probably has a well ordered and planned approach to getting things done. If you need their help in a tight turnaround, you know you’ll be safe in their hands. On the other hand the rule breaker lives for the moment and takes things as they come. If you’re looking for a new approach or way of doing things, they will be up for the challenge. But their casual and unplanned manner might make you question their reliability. In reflection, I’m not sure it is fair to characterize as rule follower or rule breaker – it’s just two personality traits.
The key is to find a way to mix the two. If I might use a metaphor; these are like an emulsion. Emulsions a mixture of two things that would typically not be soluble or miscible. Food products are many time emulsions and turn out wonderful. Some of these foods come to mind: milk, mayonnaise, sausage, béarnaise and hollandaise sauces, and lunch meat. Therefore, if we have self-awareness it will help us to understand our core preferences, strengths and weaknesses, as well as how our styles may come across to others who are very different from us. This self-awareness gives us tremendous power to adapt our behaviors when necessary for the good of the team. If we take the time to build relationships with those we work with we will better understand and appreciate each other’s natural preferences. Ultimately we can become a more powerful team.
Hatching Change
One of the things I am always saying is that I do not like the words, “buy-in.” It has been my experience that if you have to go get buy-in for some new initiative or change, you have already failed. Done correctly, the buy-in should happen organically as the change or initiative is being planned. As Ken Blanchard said in Simple Truth #22, “People Who Plan The Battle Rarely Battle The Plan” of Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways To Be A Servant Leader and Build Trust, Making Common Sense Common Practice by Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley, “…people have a hard time getting behind an organizational change effort they have had no part in creating” (p. 61). That’s why I am such a believer in the Vantage Points Model (MG Taylor Corporation). The Vantage Point Model reminds us that we should gather as many stakeholders from different points of view as possible (philosophy, culture, policy, strategy, tactics, logistics, and tasks). Blanchard went on to tell us that, “When they [people] can play a part in implementing the plan and are allowed to express their concerns and contribute their ideas and feedback, they are more likely to align behind the plan and help accomplish it” (p. 61). Thus my point about “buy-in.”
If we have been inclusive during incubation phase of the change process or initiative building, then there should already be buy-in because it was the group’s initiative to start with. If all those with a stake in the change or new initiative have been represented this will get us to a better product in the end. I have witnessed initiatives in schools fail, that were good ideas, because teachers and/or students were left out of the incubation phase. After the hatching the change or initiative I heard, “That was a good idea, but failed because no-one asked the ones (teachers) that would be implementing it. We could have told them to do x, y, and z and it would have worked.” There were so many times when I was a teacher or principal that we had some school process we needed to correct or create and almost every time that we got stuck trying to figure it out, it was the students who would come up with the solution that actually worked.
So next time you need to hatch change, don’t forget to gather representatives from all groups that will be affected by the change.
It All Comes Back To Relationships
I’ve had the honor of spending the past two days in Florida facilitating professional development for teachers. It was so inspiring to work with teachers who were so positive and clear in their purpose for serving scholars. Interestingly, as we come back even better after the pandemic years one theme came out in every one of my sessions: relationships are the key to everything. No matter how tough things are, we have to remember that building the meaningful relationships with students is number one. We have known for a long time that the relationship with a teacher can be critically important to how well students learn. We also know these meaningful relationships are much deeper than social interactions. Great teachers engage with students around their curiosity, their interests, their habits of mind through understanding and approaching material to really be an effective teacher. Research also tells us that the teachers that form these relationships are happier and experience the true joy of teaching.
When I was teaching I actually had the personal mission statement of, “I strive to use rigor, relevance and relationships to be a steward of high student achievement.” I blogged about that in Drumming Up Relationships. We must learn our students and connect with them on a real level, showing respect for their culture and affirming their worthiness to receive the best education possible. Our relationships with students matter more than we might ever know. Our abilities to show empathy and compassion are crucial. We must also continually hone our skills at practicing perspective-taking: actively imagining how a student might perceive or be affected by a situation. This can help us reduce bias and deepen our relationships with students. With deeper relationships comes trust, and with trust comes more engagement in learning.
Acquired Skills
On Monday of this week I finished Volume One of the Autobiography of Mark Twain. As I have told others, it is one of the most fascinating and toughest reads all at the same time. One of the things I wasn’t sure of at first, but grew to love was how Twain chose to write his autobiography in a way no one ever had before. He chose to dictate it, so it is very conversational. And he chose to write it as thoughts came to him and not in any chronological order. As he put it, he would talk about something until it didn’t interest him any more and then he would go on to something else. To me it is great because it eliminates those stretches that get long and drawn out in most autobiographies and biographies. I’m not sure, however, that anyone but Twain could pull this off. I’m just getting started in Volume Two, but it is just as great.
Needless to say, I took a bunch of notes and have lots of thoughts to develop. The first was Twain speaking of being proud of our acquirements. Twain said, “An acquirement is something you’ve worked hard to master.” I loved this because it had nothing to do with things or possessions, but with skills and knowledge. I like Merriam-Webster’s definition of acquirement: “a skill of mind or body usually resulting from continued endeavor.” Twain refers to many skills he worked hard to acquire and those of others. I believe need to contemplate the acquired skills we need to developed in ourselves or help to develop in others. These are the skills and expertise obtained through education and/or experience.
I also believe we should view all those things we call soft skills, hard skills, professional skills, or whatever the buzz word of the day is, acquired skills. To me this acknowledges that there is work to be done for acquirement. The “continued endeavor” from the Merriam-Webster definition. What acquired skills must you nurture and develop over time? Better yet, how can you help others nurture and develop acquired skills?
Inviting Instead Of Commanding
Ken Blanchard said, “Servant leaders know people want to be part of the team. They invite their people to follow them in a side-by-side working relationship that the people have had a part in creating” (p. 59) in Simple Truth #21, “Servant Leaders Don’t Command People To Obey; They Invite People To Follow” of Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways To Be A Servant Leader and Build Trust, Making Common Sense Common Practiceby Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley. We know that leading by title does not work. We also know that command and control does not work.
Relationships, walking the talk, skills, and results make you a leader. Titles should confirm leadership but they can never bestow it. The weight of many leaders I have encountered titles has made them forget that those titles do not account for the wisdom to evolve. It’s like the principal who forgets what it was like to be a teacher. Or, the person leading principals who was never a principal. Leadership should be about inspiring people to believe in themselves, to believe in their gifts, to believe in their potential, and to believe in something much greater than their own self-preservation.
The essence of the great servant leaders I’ve witnessed has been a positive team environment, honest/transparent communication, helps, engages, and appreciates. Remember, leadership is earned through behavior.
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