Learning Vs Being Right
We live, work, and play in such complex institutional and cultural environments today. Therefore, we must be adaptive individual learners, as well as, learning organizations. Mary Catherine Bateson taught us that openness to learning and changing is more important than what one knows at any given point. Openness to learning and willingness to adjust are important qualities. Learning is more important and being right. Learning is a perspective as much as it is a practice. We need to be nurture and encourage an attitude of learning. We must seek out ideas, information, and approaches so we can learn from others, including those whose views diverge from ours.
There are really three pieces to great leadership:
- Curiosity
- Growth Mindset
- Openness
If we go back to the teaching of Bateson, we find openness as an essential trait. If we have an appreciation of diverse perspectives and a willingness to try new things, we can better navigate daily challenges and discover novel solutions. Openness allows ideas to merge and develop by valuing diversity of thinking. Unfortunately, school taught us (and is still doing this) that we need to always be right. But, that binary way of thinking keeps us from considering that there might be a right answer, especially when we are on uncharted ground.
Forgiveness Is Not Earned
Well, here we are, the 52nd week of the year and the final reflective post from the great book, 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. I love books that are broken into 52 lessons like this one. Every year I pick a book like this one where I can read a weekly passage, reflect, and then dedicate writing a blog post each week. If your looking for a great book to inspire you in 2023, this could be that one. Simple Truth #52 was “Forgiveness Is Letting Go Of All Hope For A Better Past. We need to practice forgiveness because, as Collins said, “You can’t revise history to make it better” (p. 133). When we forgive we are doing an action of faith.
Gandhi taught us that forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. We must remember that forgiveness is a gift and gifts are not earned, they are given. Collins told us, “Forgiveness can’t be earned by the offender; it can only be given by the offended” (p. 133). The most courageous act of leadership is to forgo the temptation to take revenge on those on the other side of an issue or who have wronged us in some way. Bottom-line is that those we serve are human. The thing about us humans is that we all have personal issues, frailties and struggles, we inevitably do lots of things that make others unhappy. So, let’s put empathy into action and show compassion and forgive.
Christmas Playfulness
How are you doing with your playfulness? On this Christmas morning I am thinking about how we learn through our bodies. The somatic side of learning if you will. Watching kids play with toys on Christmas is amazing. Wait a minute; watching adults play with their kid’s toys on Christmas is amazing. With play we get participation and full engagement. Play inspires curiosity. Curiosity in turn opens the door for exploration, experimentation, and more learning. What if we intentionally focused on learning, leading, and living through play? For adults and children alike, play makes use of all our different senses – visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. Our bodies store so much of our information and when we become active, our learning becomes sticky.
I love to use playing as a part of the leadership development work I do. Play fosters our curiosity and strengthens our childlike spirit to transform the way we show up as a conscious leader. Play reduces resistance and pushback because people are relaxed. When we let our guard down, all learning happens more easily. Playing also brings low-stress social interaction. Playing is how we connect. Play stimulates our imagination, helping us adapt and solve problems. Play gives us an opportunity to refresh, rejuvenate, and revitalize. When was the last time you played?
Belonging
‘Belonging’ is something I’ve been contemplating a lot lately. And, tradition has a lot to do with belonging. In fact this past week the WD-40 Company posted on LinkedIn: “92% of tribe members recently shared that as a part of WD-40 Company, they strongly experience a sense of belonging. Now that’s something to be proud of! Want to join us? Visit our careers page today!” I commented, “Belonging is such an important part of a community. Thanks, WD-40 Company, for being a great role model and example of this for all of us!” Then this morning, Christmas Eve, my son Heath, reminded me how important traditions are to belonging. Today is also Heath’s birthday and he wanted to make sure we went out and fed the cattle together because we always do that together on his birthday. He had also secured some Florida Ruby Red grapefruit because we always have them on Christmas Eve and Christmas mornings.
Having Heath reminding me of those traditions brought about great feelings of belonging. Traditions provide a sense of stability and help us connect with our roots. “Tradiare”, a Latin word meaning “to hand over, to transmit” is where tradition gets its roots. It is a practice or ritual that is passed down from generation to generation. Those traditions then become memories. So keep building belonging, traditions, and memories.
The Sanest Insane Thing
As she was making her way westward on the the wagon train in April of 1855, one of the characters in Book 2 of Threads West An American Saga: Maps of Fate by the award winning historical fiction author Reid Lance Rosenthal made the comment that this was “the sanest insane thing I’ve ever done.” The characters in this book went west for many different reasons, but all carried a dream of creating a better life for themselves and their families in this new, undeveloped territory. I love the paradox of sanity and insanity that Rosenthal created here. Though the emigrant characters of the book may have been prepared for the trip physically by bringing the supplies necessary and hiring qualified wagon masters, few were prepared psychologically for the intensity of the pioneer experience. This could be said for many of our experience. Were we prepared for the intensity of the experience?
“You have to forget about what other people say, when you’re supposed to die, or when you’re supposed to be loving. You have to forget about all these things. You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven.” ~ Jimi Hendrix
That’s why I love the quote above from Jimi Hendrix. Sometimes we just have to do the crazy. Over the last couple of weeks I have been to holiday gatherings with people from my past work of being a principal of a school we took over. Every person I have encountered has discussed the intensity of that experience. It was crazy insane to leave a great teaching position at a great school to be a principal of a failing school, but it really was heaven. Every student deserves a great school and we made that possible for students on the south side of Indianapolis. In the process, I became part of the family of one the greatest group of teachers and staff members in the world. One of the things that always gets brought up when visiting with those family members is just how much fun we had. It was crazy insane at times, but it was also heaven.
In A First-Rate Madness, author and psychiatrist Nassir Ghaemi, used the provocative thesis: “For abnormal challenges, abnormal leaders are needed.” I love this. I am not suggesting any of us had mental illness or disorders. Ghaemi argued, however, that “[w]e should accept, even celebrate” the possibility that our decision-makers have dealt with mental illnesses — disorders which, he wrote, tend to promote the qualities of “realism, resilience, empathy and creativity.” As Hendrix said, we have to forget what people say and “go on and be crazy.”
The Synchronized Team
“The camp worked together like a synchronized team.” This was the wagon master speaking of the group he was leading westward in Book 2 of Threads West An American Saga: Maps of Fate by the award winning historical fiction author Reid Lance Rosenthal. As I read that line I imagined the pioneers as synchronous swimmers, floating around their wagons, oxen, horses, and cooking fires, practicing marksmanship for those new to firearms, and getting all the important things done. Like, cooking food, greasing and tightening wagon wheel axles, making jerky from a freshly harvested deer, or the myriad of other duties necessary for a very long and arduous journey to be successful. I imagined every person having some role they were particularly good at and then learning new skills as they chipped in and helped each other. A synchronized team, just like in synchronized swimming, consists of differing roles or dimensions that are balanced to ensure success.
In synchronized swimming the choice of music and choreography enhance the team’s performance and highlighting of the best attributes of team members. The wagon master had displayed this leadership skill by building relationships with those he was leading, allowing him to understand strengths, weaknesses, and skills. This allowed him to choreograph each stop to be perfectly synchronized. Everyone had to move together and everyone had to be able function together as a team. Sound familiar? This is what all our teams need to do. So what are the keys? Here’s what the wagon master taught us:
- Build relationships
- Have a shared vision/goal
- Build trust
- Create transparency and accountability
- Understand each others’ strengths
- Communication
Are you serving as a good leadership wagon master?
Delete The Screenshot
This will be my 51st post about the book 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. I committed to reading one simple truth each week during 2022 and writing a reflective post. With this one I’ve got 51 down and one to go. This week’s Simple Truth #51 is “Choosing Not To Forgive Someone Is Like Taking Poison And Waiting For The Other Person To Die.” Everyone knows how I love metaphors. My metaphor for refusing to forgive others is like taking a screenshot of the time of the offense and then making it your lock screen wallpaper, so every time your phone or computer screen lights up, you see it.
Why does that screenshot matter? You end up playing that offense over and over and over. Conley told us that, “Leaders need to have tough skin and soft hearts” (p. 131). This is so true! This simple truth also taught us we are limited in our ability to lead authentically when we choose not to forgive. We need to choose to forgive completely, delete the screenshot, and move on to what we are called to do.
Ringing True
It is interesting when reading about something in history how different people have different takes on the same event. The way we remember things is not necessarily the way they were. Reality and imagination get mixed together. If you think about it, endings have a disproportionate influence on any narrative. How what happened ended can have an impact on how the story is told. We need to remember that the context of the person telling the story matters. Sometimes the context gets dropped or there is nuance to the history. As leaders or authors, when we tell the stories they need to be true.
Knitting Relationships
Relationships have always mattered. This past week I was complimenting a school team I work with and the superintendent said, “Well, it always comes back to the relationships we’ve built and are building.” Those are such true words and a reminder that building relationships is a top of the list item for us to always be working on. I am reading Book 2 of Threads West An American Saga: Maps of Fate by the award winning historical fiction author Reid Lance Rosenthal. In this book the wagon master told the group he was leading west that, “groups where everyone gets to know each other are more likely to cover each other’s back.” That covering of each other’s backs was pretty important during the 1850’s migration westward. But, it is just as important today as we navigate through the 21st century.
Great relationships bring with them an implicit trust that increases the opportunity for collaboration and cooperation. These relationships many times turn into intelligence communities that could potentially solve the world’s most complex problems. What I really believe the superintendent above was saying was that the people around us help us make better decisions. We in turn, can also help them make better decisions. Now, back to the wagon train. I can’t imagine taking that several month journey westward. But, I really can’t imagine taking it without the building of relationships. Really, that is one of the great things that Rosenthal brings out. People of uncommon origins form bonds and relationships that weave together to explore and innovate in an unknown land. It really is, as Rosenthal told me when I visited with him last month, “Our story.” Actually, getting to know Rosenthal has made reading the books even more meaningful. I got to know him and about his motivation for writing the books. Again, relationships matter!
I’ve heard it said that we are “human beings” not “human resources.” So true! As I read about the knitting (🧶 pun intended) of relationships, I am reminded of how every relationship, good or bad, matters. As I read about some of the relationships I kept yelling, “Get away from them!” And for others I would say, “Get closer.” Reid was right; this is our story. We need to lean into those strong relationships and get away from those that are bringing us down. Happy knitting!
The Apology Bridge
Apologies are about accountability. Because relationships are the key to everything it is important to, “Choose the relationship over being right” (p. 129). Randy Conley told us it is about playing the long game. He said, “All relationships have conflict. Use wisdom to discern when it’s better to apologize, even if your in the right, for the sake of preserving the long-term health of the relationship” (p. 129). All these thoughts were in Simple Truth #50, “Apologizing Is Not Necessarily An Admission Of Guilt, But It Is An Admission Of Responsibility” in the great book Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways To Be A Servant Leader and Build Trust, Making Common Sense Common Practice, Ken Blanchardand Randy Conley.
As I stated at the beginning, apologies are all about being accountable, apologies meet the moment, and apologies can transform our relationships. Apologies are an opportunity for us to take clear and direct responsibility for our wrongdoing without evading, blaming, making excuses, or dredging up offenses from the past. Psychologist Harriet Lerner advised that most apologies completely miss the mark. Lerner said, “When the apology is absent or it’s a bad apology, it puts a crack in the very foundation of a relationship and can even end it.” Let’s let apologies be a bridge of communication and accountability for our relationships.
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