Colin Hubbell Led With His Best Self

Friends,

Each RFL concludes with the simple, hopefully provocative line: “lead with your best self.”  There’s always a choice about what self you’ll be – in every precious, present moment.  Your best self is an ethical self that chooses the right thing because it’s the right thing.  Your best self is a courageous self.  Courage, especially for those “everyday leaders” who appear to be followers, who have titles like assistant or deputy, receptionist or associate, teenager or middle child, or first man, which always means second person J.  Gosh, there’s a lot of titles for a lot of everyday leaders.  Our best self steps up through these roles, when we’re not paid to, not expected to, or in some cases not welcome to speak, to act, or to lead.  Conversely, for authorized leaders leading with your best self sometimes means doing the right and courageous thing by admitting you don’t know, asking for help, or giving away your power.

Maybe what’s most true of “leading with your best self” is that it’s your authentic best self.  Which brings me to Colin.  Colin Hubbell.  Perhaps 10% of you know Colin.  Maybe some of you who do, don’t know that he died on Thursday night; sorry to bear that sad news.  Our first question when we hear someone has died always seems to be “how old was s/he?” – as we gauge ourselves against a lost comrade.  We’re quietly relieved when they are older than us, as it means we “should” be safe for a while, but we are more troubled when they’re younger than us.  Colin was only 49.  So, for many of us he rings the bell of urgency.  For those of us on the senior side of 49, we’re piercingly reminded, as Colin told many of us in his 2-1/2 year battle with cancer:  Each day is a gift, never a guarantee.

Colin Hubbell exquisitely led with his best self – his real, authentic self.  Colin was a white, professional father of four who lived in and loved Detroit, when others were complaining and fleeing.  He worked for the buttoned-down Mayor Archer, and he supported and befriended the so-called hip-hop Mayor Kilpatrick.  He rode his bike 15 miles to work and then to meetings, any season of the year.  Like all great best-self leaders he saw people as individuals, not as types; he would reach out to anyone and was not fooled by appearances.  He ran a sub-3-hour marathon, but seemed to take greater delight in Trish, his wife’s midlife running craze.  He loved his alma mater Catholic Central, but sent his sons to rival U of D High.  He developed lofts in mid-town Detroit and sold them when people said he was crazy and it couldn’t be done.  He talked openly with his associates, friends, and even children about his bladder (then bone, then liver) cancer.  He was at moments positively defiant.  He laughed at the drugs that made him loopy.  And he was not afraid to say he was scared and to cry.  He was always real.  WYSWWHW – what you saw was what he was.  He knew he was mortal.  He was real every minute, which we’re reminded is all we have. Lots of us thought Colin was crazy.  You never knew what might come out of his mouth.  But you never doubted that it was Colin’s view – nobody’s else’s.

Colin Hubbell was Colin Hubbell.  Thinking of this man I loved and admired makes me ask myself:  Am I being the Dan Mulhern that only I can be, or am I squandering that chance?  And you?  No one else has the chance or inkling of what it’s like to be you.  Are you trying to please others, worried about their critiques, afraid of their silent judgment, fitting in with them, and thus missing the chance to be the best you you can be?  What a tragedy to live someone else’s life, to try to be what others want you to be, and to miss the chance to be the unique and marvelous you, to truly

Lead with YOUR best self!

Dan

Olympian Greatness - players and coaches

Friends,

Here’s the stuff we’ve shared this week:  Michael Phelps.  Kwame.  Michael Phelps.  Kwame.  Michael Phelps.  Kwa…  It’s amazing how our attention is drawn to the HUGE – figuratively, and in this case, literally huge – characters in our world.  Last week, I suggested we consciously reclaim our focus from our obsession with condemning fallen heroes and instead direct it to our own tendency to fail or fall.  (And, by the way, your blogging was exceptionally good.)  This week I invite you to learn from the Olympians – our modern-day athletic, Greek gods – about excellence and the thrill of victory.  How do they do it?  What can we learn?

Phelps, we were repeatedly told by the sportscasters, had a vision of greatness and pushed himself to extraordinary limits.  What’s your gold?  Where might you be in 10 or 15 or 20 years?   Imagine the power that comes from having a clear picture of success, and claiming it, now!  And can you imagine emulating this aspect of Phelps’ behavior:  he took the newspaper stories in which people criticized or doubted him, and he put them up in his locker – to remind him, to inspire and challenge him.  He’d show them.  How cool is that?  Often a negative opinion can drag you down, generate self-doubt, or even lead you to give up?  How awesome to take your opponent or adversary or critic and put ‘em right in front of you to motivate you.  Bring it on!!!!

A change in Olympic practice also echoes through the professional world:  using the power of a personal coach.  If you want to excel like a Phelps, get yourself a Bob Bowman!

Or be for others like Bowman, Phelps’ dedicated coach, is for Michael.  As a coach you can make all the difference in the world.  Many of us may do much more good being a Bowman than a Phelps.  And every supervisor should see development of their people’s talent as one of the central purposes of their existence (and I don’t even mean just work existence!).  Being a great coach is a high calling.  And here’s the central art:  a constant balancing of challenge on the one hand, with loving encouragement on the other.  Whether it’s in the Beijing National Indoor Stadium, the Water Cube, or the Bird’s Nest, great coaches believe in and challenge, support and push, embrace and drive their athletes to greatness.  Get out there – set great goals, hold their feet to the fire of their commitments, and let them know you’re committed to their success.

Work like Mike or coach like Bob to

Lead with your best self!

Dan

Our Leaders Our Selves

Friends,

I don’t know about you, but I’ve spent more minutes than I’d like to admit railing about Mayor Kilpatrick and John (and Elizabeth) Edwards this week.  My talk has been mostly – if not completely purposeless.  I’ve just been part of the Greek chorus of outraged citizens.  I don’t think I’ve enlightened anyone else or likely made myself more moral as a result.  So, why write more?  Well, here’s a really weird connection.

Every year the State of Michigan’s Office of Great Workplace Development does a survey of employees regarding the workplace culture.  The survey asks “how evident” the values of Integrity, Excellence, Teamwork and Inclusion are.  It asks this at five levels:  in general, in departmental leadership, of one’s boss, of one’s co-workers and of the employee filling out the survey.  Can you guess the consistent result?  Who gets the highest rating?  Why, the person filling out the survey!!!  Over 90% of people say they not only demonstrate excellence but also show integrity, inclusiveness and teamwork almost always, or all the time.  They rate their co-workers pretty well, their boss less well, their departmental leadership less, and the state government as a whole the lowest.  The results are consistent across the four values and across all departments.  Isn’t that amusing?  And needless to say it makes NO LOGICAL SENSE: if each of us were so incredibly good then wouldn’t it have to follow that we’re pretty good as whole?

What’s the connection to Mayor Kilpatrick or Senator Edwards?  It’s the human connection!  We judge leaders harshly (those who ask to lead us invite that scrutiny), but they are just human and so are we.  Their colossal failures distract us from our work – this crazy hard work of being a human being of integrity.  As parents we teach love, but sometimes we’re not so loving.  As bosses we expect communication but forget to communicate.  As pastors (literally “leaders of flocks”) we proclaim God’s mercy but forget to trust and experience that mercy ourselves.

I can hardly imagine being in the painful shoes that these leaders have put upon themselves and invited us to tighten excruciatingly around their feet of clay.  But in the end, you and I walk in our own shoes.  There’s always a gap between the behaviors I preach and those I demonstrate.  Maybe there’s some value to the madness if you and I gain a little more courage to see our faults and own them before we cause others and ourselves so much of the pain that flows from deceit of ourselves and those we lead, hopefully

With our best selves!

Dan

On the Need to Speak Up!

Friends,

Based upon psychological surveys of well over a million people, we can safely conclude that about half of us tend to gain our energy and focus our lives primarily inside, on our inner thoughts and feelings. Folks who tend toward “introversion” are not all shy, but it is as if we have an on going experience – of both thinking and feeling – that is introverted. While our counterparts, the “extroverts,” tend to express their thoughts and their feelings, and be caught up in external happenings, those of us who prefer introversion spend more time and energy reflecting, weighing, considering, and mulling.

Last week I was working with a start up company, and according to the Myers-Briggs instrument, as well as the participants’ self-description, six of the eight tended toward introversion. To a facilitator (or a boss running a meeting), that can be quite challenging. The participants’ faces were not very expressive, for it was as if their mental energy was folded in, and they were probing, wondering, perhaps debating in their own minds, and measuring ideas against their experiences and intuitions. Similarly, their emotional side was well contained, so often their faces did not show enthusiasm nor frustration nor rebelliousness. I had to guess.

In your own minds’ eye, you might imagine the team you work with, and have a pretty good guess as to which members prefer an introverted approach to life. Meanwhile, if you prefer introversion, it might be helpful to know that much more often than you imagine, people are unsure of what you are thinking or feeling. That can be challenging. So a word of advice to introverts and to those who work with introverts*:

To those who tend to introversion I’d say: work hard to ensure that the team gets the full value of your ideas and feelings. You may think a boss or one of your coworkers is great, but unless you tell them they may never know it. You may think you have an idea that’s good, but your natural instinct will be to keep thinking about it to get it right. But sometimes it’s important to share it – even if you don’t think it’s all thought out – so that others may benefit from it in their thinking. In short: get it out, express it, share the valuable thoughts and feelings you have inside!

To those who work with us sometimes frustrating introverts I would say: ask us, draw us out, and gently remind us that we have something to offer and you would love to hear it.

Introverts need to be reminded to share the value in order to…

Lead with their best self,

Dan
*You can find much more than “a word of advice” about preferences like introversion and extraversion, the Myers-Briggs and its cousin the Keirsey temperament instrument. I have found Keirsey’s book Please Understand Me to be invaluable in understanding myself, my marriage, children, and key work relationships. You can find it here

Leading in Tough Times 6 - Faith and Framing

Friends,

It is a truism that a good lawyer never asks a question in court whose answer she doesn’t know.  But some of the fun of live radio is doing just that.  You take a flier on a question without really knowing what you’ll get.  That happened this weekend when I inquired of John Patricolo, executive vice president of Right Management Associates, “I may be putting you on the spot, but I wonder if you’d hazard a guess at what percentage of the clients your company has helped through downsizing and career transitions have felt better about their work and their lives 6 months or a year after coming to you than before they were downsized?”  John, whose firm has helped thousands of folks make that tough life transition, hardly hesitated: “Eighty percent, I’d say.”  I expected a pretty healthy number.  80% really blew me away.

John’s data flies in the face of our rather depressing conventional knowledge.  Conventional knowledge says: challenge is bad; loss is bad; and suffering is definitely bad.  And conventional knowledge says: with good leadership, things will always grow, get better, be smooth.  But that defies all laws, the laws of nature, of economics, or of the world of spirit.  Things don’t forever arc upward.  Instead change is constant, things grow and things shrink, hair grows and then hairlines recede, nights get longer but then shorter, jobs challenge and then jobs become obsolete.  I feel for people who are jolted by a downsizing, a bad health report, or a life loss.  But I also pull back my mind’s camera, frame things larger, and remember that such losses almost never have to be an end but almost always open up to new beginnings.

The conventional view of Michigan’s economy is that the sky is falling.  But observers are missing thousands of rebirths that are accompanying bad news.  Individuals are finding new careers (according to Patricolo, 63% of downsized folks in the Southeast Michigan region are finding jobs there) that are frequently better.  Companies are, albeit painfully, reinventing themselves.  Companies like Herman Miller have paid close attention to their core values and emerged from downsizing as stronger companies.  Individuals in pain are rediscovering enduring values of faith, family, love, and sometimes a long lost passion toward work. And whole new industries are rising up.

One thing we can do as leaders is to draw the frame back from the tight focus on the immediate and see that in crisis lie myriad opportunities for growth.  Our own eagerness and resilience and our FAITH will serve us well as we lead others through times that appear dark but can and usually will yield to the light.

Look for opportunities for rebirth as you

Lead with your best self!

Dan

Leading in Tough Times 5 - Do BEST What You Do Often

Friends,

On the Everyday Leadership radio show our goal is to “make work work.”  A waitress wanted advice and said: my clientele is changing, less people are eating out, and tips are down . . . but, she added, I know you can’t help me with that.  A distant bell was ringing in my head, about a study I once read that said servers who find a way to physically touch their customers get higher tips.  So, I went Googling for it, and he came up on page one of my search.

I mean Professor Michael Wynn who teaches at Cornell University.  He has done tens – maybe fifty - studies on the variables that affect tipping.  Can you guess some?  Introducing yourself by name, crouching down to talk, repeating the customer’s orders back to them, thanking them by name (usually from seeing their credit card), and yes, physically touching them.  So, I started out on a non-scientific study, asking servers if they knew these things.  Almost none did.  And I asked Professor Wynn whether restaurant management routinely teach wait staff about this research.  Very infrequently, he answered -  despite the obvious rewards they stand to reap from customer satisfaction and loyalty.

What’s the everyday leadership lesson?  In tough times, get the research about your everyday work.  We do over and over again what we have done over and over again.  Yet Google is always sitting right there in our office, waiting for us to learn there’s a simple, better, more efficient way, and a way that’s probably been proven.   When was the last time you searched on your core task or tasks to find out what’s new, proven, and effective?  Google will give you results in under a second.  Got a minute?

In tough times:  Control what you can control, and in your core business, learn all you can to

Lead with your best self!

Dan

Leading in Tough Times 4 - Problem into Opportunity - Graffiti or Art?

Friends,

Challenging times.  Somber stuff.  I was going to write about three types of folks challenged by layoffs:  the one receiving the bad news, the one delivering the bad news, and the workers left behind.  A core message was to be this:  stay open to rebirth and deep purpose.  Then I came to Philly.

We’re here for the National Governors Association meeting and I was fortunate to land on a tour of some of Philadelphia’s 2,800 – yes, two thousand eight hundred – murals.  The project began in 1984, when Mayor Wilson Goode created the Anti-Graffiti Network and hired Jane Golden, a muralist, to run it.  Golden began taking graffiti artists (not called artists by many at the time) and directing them in a project to learn about and produce murals.  Twelve years later, Mayor Rendell created a public-private partnership called the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and it is now known around the world.

Think of all the people complaining, or to put it kindly, expressing righteous indignation about the messy graffiti.  And think of all the people bemoaning urban decay, the decline of an industrial city, the hopelessness of a once-great revolutionary city.  There was plenty of challenge, fear, depression, anger, scapegoating, etc.  Someone(s) saw opportunity.  No one could have imagined 2,800 murals – and 100 more every year; 5,000 people annually touring the sites; 3,000 kids served through 56 sites every year; a prisoner art program and prison re-entry initiative; 100 Philadelphia schools involved in teaching and creating murals to uplift older buildings and playgrounds.  And perhaps most importantly, prior to those 100 new murals a year, 100 community groups discussing their stories of culture, of heroes, of values, of what they want to literally and figuratively uplift for themselves and those who pass through their neighborhoods.  And before those murals were even finished, they set off spontaneous sparks of pride, creativity, and expression on the block and in the surrounding neighborhood.  The vibrancy is palpable.

If there’s something that you are tired of tolerating, ask yourself:  where’s the possibility – the opportunity – for something altogether new and better?  What might you help bring into being, in life’s amazing cycles of death and resurrection, decay and revitalization.  Check out www.muralarts.org or check out the book Philadelphia Murals and the Stories They Tell to get inspired by some amazing examples of folks,

Leading with their best self!

Dan

Leading in Tough Times 3 - fundamentals for leading with authority

Friends,

Are you in, or have you been in, a system under great pressure, facing overwhelming challenges?  If so, tell me if your experience has been like mine:

In systems – e.g., family, job shop, company, church – where the system’s survival is under stress . . . individuals look out for their own self interest, their own survival.  Sure a few think they better cling to the ship at all costs.  A some small number of others are exceedingly self-sacrificing.  And a tiny fraction have splendidly rose-colored glasses and don’t believe the boat will keep taking on water.  Some, yes, are noble to the point of heroics.  But many, I dare say most, when the system is under pressure, will increasingly see the world through a lens of “me” not “we.”  If you’re the parent, you won’t necessarily see how a kid in a divorcing family will retreat into a highly personal view of survival.  You won’t know in a struggling company how many people are going to Monster.com.  When you’re the mayor or manager in a city under great strain you won’t hear­ how people are talking about their own safety or their own kids’ schools.  But you know they are.  So, what do you do when you want them to think about others, about the whole, the community, family, city?

1.  Talk about the value of the whole.  “We are the Jones Family. . .”  “We are Dansville. . .”  “We are Acme. . .”   If YOU, in authority – the parent, the boss, the owner, the pastor – don’t have pride about your family, your company, your community – in these troubled times, then why should they?  Talk about why they should want to belong.

2.     Interpret the reality.  Yes, they know this is a divorce.  They know, to quote the kids, “it sucks.”  They know the company’s in trouble.  They know that you’re not as charismatic as their last pastor, and some families have left the church.  But help them understand that you know something about why.  You know something about what caused it.  You see that people are nervous.  You understand that anxiety.  And you’re not panicking.

3.     Let them know that you have some strategy to make things better.  Communicate the plan.

4.     Ask for their help.  Tell the kids they can make a difference in the divorcing family.  Ask the employees how they can cut costs or help sell.  Engage the church members in finding a new way to build community.

In short:  communicate more than ever before.  If you don’t engage them in a view of the whole and their place in it, they will retreat to their personal self interest.  If you’re not sure what it looks like, rent “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and watch George Bailey when there’s a run on the bank: Educate about the crisis, inspire a communal spirit, communicate a plan, and give them a way to help.

Be like George Bailey, the quintessential everyday leader, and

Lead with your best self!

Dan

Leading in Tough Times 2 - You Under Pressure

Friends,

Last week, with a first RFL in a series on “leadership in times of challenge,” I invited you to consider the possibility that someone’s nutty behavior may be less a product of their individual psychological makeup than the fact that there are unusual pressures in the system.  I gave the example of a teen acting out, or someone blowing up at a meeting.  It’s easy to blame them, but it may be much more fruitful to ask: What’s going on here (or in other circles they’re in) that would cause them to flip out?  What was implied is that systemic pressure will cause a weak link to break; pressure seeks escape.*

Today I’d suggest more broadly: Everyone – or nearly everyone – consciously or otherwise reacts to pressures and stresses on the system as a whole.  And it’s important to know how YOU react.  If a company is in trouble, for instance, fear will generate predictable outlets:  e.g., authorities will be blamed; factions will fight over perceived scarcities (of money, management’s attention, etc.); personality differences that are usually tolerated will become hot spots.  The well-meaning people fueling these distractions will often and unwittingly be taking focus away from the real work that’s threatening the company.

The first work of leadership is to know how I - me, the one I can best control – react to pressure.  Two places deserve your attention.  First, are you playing the distraction games mentioned above – rumor-mongering, finger-pointing, side-taking, etc.?  If so, STOP!  Second, it helps to understand how you react under pressure.  Most of us tend to exaggerate our behaviors, leaning upon our perceived strengths, our comfort zones.  For instance, I tend to retreat into the safety of big-picture thoughts, big ideas and ideals.  But the group may need focus on some hard details and daily execution.  Others tend to be take-control folks, and under pressure may take the situation by the throat (remember General Haig when President Reagan was shot, announcing he was in control?).  Some retreat.  Some charge.  Some get Mr. Spock like logical.  Others get very emotional – angry or empathetic to the point of paralysis.

Do you know what you do under pressure?  As I have often written, leaders ask not “What’s comfortable for me, or what do I want?” but must always ask, “What does the group need?”  Don’t assume they’re the same.

Economic and other group pressures will continue to accompany those who lead, it’s important to understand how you react to them if you are to

Lead with your best self.

Dan

* Ronald Heifetz is a phenomenal teacher when it comes to understanding group pressure and leadership response.  A Harvard-trained psychiatrist, Heifetz started the leadership programs at the JFK School of Government at Harvard where he continues to teach leadership.  You can find his analysis in his book Leading on the Edge, co-authored by Marty Linsky, former chief of staff to Governor William Weld of Massachusetts.

Everyday Leaders - Leading in Tough Times - First in a series

Friends,

Gosh, we had some great calls to the Everyday Leadership Show on Saturday.*  The callers elicited wonderful thoughts and advice from my regular guests, Kathi Elster and Katherine Crowley.**  The economic downturn and hovering uncertainty formed the unmistakable backdrop for the calls.  Groups and individuals act quite differently when the context changes:

* When storm clouds arise, when the barometric pressure increases quickly;
* When the team is losing, when the inning is late;
* When ticket sales or charitable contributions drop off markedly;
* When foreclosures increase or sales plummet.

Under such over-arching pressures, people can act very strangely.  In the next few RFLs I’ll offer some thoughts on those changing behaviors and the resulting demands on leaders – whether you’re leading with authority or from among the crowd.

Lesson One:  read the signs.  So often we assume that weird individual behavior is weird individual behavior.  But so often weird behavior - like the skittish reaction of the deer or bird - tells us more about external conditions than about that particular animal.  Some people are simply more sensitive, and/or are more wildly expressive.  They are like pressure-meters in their systems.  So, an adolescent on a behavioral wild streak almost always points to something going on in the family system and/or the peer system, and not just to their personal psyche.  An employee who freaks out, stomps out, quits, betrays a confidence, or suddenly withdraws, may tell us much about the system(s), if we look there.  Likewise, we would do well to at least wonder whether the unusually hostile behavior of a somewhat nutty boss has been provoked by changes or stresses in the system(s) s/he belongs to: family or peers at work or major pressures in the organization.

Perhaps this sounds obvious.  But it runs counter to thousands of years of our mental programming, our automatic responses.  We look – for good reason – at behavior as the product of individual freedom and choice.  Our legal and moral and child-rearing systems are built upon this fundamental truth.  It’s only a partial truth.  So, perhaps look this week at the people who seem to be acting nutty, acting out, acting difficult, and take a detached approach.  Wonder about the systems and stresses that may “belong” more to those conditions than to the individual’s idiosyncrasies.  Where might this take you – first, simply in insight, and then beyond that to some different leadership responses?  As always I look forward to your thoughtful blog responses.

I’ll offer some more thoughts about leading groups under pressure in the coming weeks.  Detaching and wondering and critically thinking are keys for you to

Lead with your best self,

Dan

*  You can hear the Everyday Leadership Show (experts in the first hour, and advice in the second to help you “make work work”) on Saturday mornings from 7-9 AM.  You can hear it online live at http://www.wjimam.com or subscribe to podcasts through iTunes, at the linked url

** Co-authors of the best-selling book Working With You is Killing Me.