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September 2011 1.2
Greetings!
Reflective Leadership is all about tapping your capacities for inner growth to create positive outer results. In this second issue of the Unfolding Leadership Newsletter, I've attempted to combine diverse but complementary articles, different textures from the same cloth. You'll find:
- Reflective Leadership Practice -- the power of metaphor
- Leadership Links -- stimulating articles, videos and tools from across the web
- Leadership Edge -- links to essays from the Unfolding Leadership weblog
- Leadership Conversations -- Q & A with reflective leaders about their practices
- The Spirit of Leadership -- links to deeper sources of leading
If you would like to review the first issue, you can find it in the archive.
Oh, and by the way, there's a "hidden" link in the Newsletter, which will take you to a positive leadership voice. You just have to picture the possibilities.
Thanks for joining me -- your feedback, comments, and suggestions for content are always welcome.
Wishing you the best in your own reflective practice!
REFLECTIVE LEADERSHIP PRACTICE
The Power of Metaphor
Fritjof Capra, in his book, Uncommon Wisdom: Conversations with Remarkable People, records this moment with Gregory Bateson:
"Logic is a very elegant tool," he [Bateson] said, "and we've got a lot of mileage out of it for two thousand years or so. The trouble is, you know, when you apply it to crabs and porpoises, and butterflies and habit formation" -- his voice trailed off, and he added after a pause, looking out over the ocean -- "you know, to all those pretty things" -- and now, looking straight at me [Capra] -- "logic won't quite do ... because that whole fabric of living things is not put together by logic. You see when you get circular trains of causation, as you always do in the living world, the use of logic will make you walk into paradoxes...."
He stopped again, and at that moment I suddenly had an insight, making a connection to something I had been interested in for a long time. I got very excited and said with a provocative smile: "Heraclitus knew that! ... And so did Lao Tzu."
"Yes, indeed; and so do the trees over there. Logic won't do for them."
"So what do they use instead?"
"Metaphor."
"Metaphor?"
"Yes, metaphor. That's how the whole fabric of mental interconnections holds together. Metaphor is right at the bottom of being alive."
Metaphor appears to be a special kind of human intelligence, a shorthand that both simplifies and adds emotional dimension to experience. "I'm drowning in a sea of email, "a friend said to me the other day, and I knew exactly what he meant. I didn't need to know the number of emails and he did not have to say he was overwhelmed, exhausted or disgusted (all of which he was). The metaphor said it all.
A good reflective practice -- one that can make sense out of ambiguous or difficult circumstances and galvanize action -- often includes finding an apt metaphor for what's going on. "The only real prison is fear," Burmese Nobel laureate, Aung San Suu Kyi is quoted as saying, "and the only real freedom is freedom from fear." We understand she is talking about a metaphorical prison, but the image concentrates the meaning in the way a megaphone amplifies a voice.
Our business environments, of course, are filled with metaphors. Not long ago, for example, I noticed an article from a well-known business school that repeatedly referred to "the chain of command," "the morale of the troops" and the "front-lines" of the organization -- all references to an old-style military hierarchy -- business organized for war. Such phrases have a way of creating an enduring mental framework and sending an underlying message about workplace culture, no matter what other current references to "associates" and "networks" might be there.
So the question is, if metaphor represents as Bateson says, "the fabric of mental interconnections," how might you change the language around what our organizations are and can be? And your role, as well.
(If you would like some help thinking about that in a fresh way, check out the link to the short Naomi Shihab Nye video at the bottom of the page.)
LEADERSHIP LINKS
Readings & Tools to Help You Lead
· Converting Failure Into Learning. How come that's so hard, and how can we do it better? Watch this 10 minute video with Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard to learn more about creating the kind of workplace that could prevent a shuttle disaster. The video is based on her recent HBR article, "Strategies for Learning from Failure." (Unfortunately, if you not an HBR subscriber, you must pay for the article.)
· Have You Seen It? Speaking of shuttles -- definitely a tangent but an irresistible one about the passage of time: this photo of father and son at the first and last shuttle launches, 30 years apart.
· Hard Times Bring Reflective Change. Claire Cain Miller of the New York Times explores the evolution of Starbucks and its leader, Howard Schultz in this classic, cautionary tale of standing up to the boss and awakening from ego: "A Changed Starbucks. A Changed C.E.O."
· Leadership Development Without Much Time or Money. CoachingOurselves is a series of self-directed group conversations fostering natural learning for mid-managers and leaders -- with or without an external facilitator. The program was created by Professor Henry Mintzberg of McGill University and colleague, Phil LeNir. Great introduction via this 23 minute video.
LEADERSHIP EDGE
Personal Essays from the Unfolding Leadership Weblog
"Contribution to Society" When I was a teenager and thinking about my future my father would tell me, "what is important in life is making a contribution to society." He never defined exactly what he meant but he didnt' have to. His tone called up all those he believed were not making such a contribution: the selfish and the control-hungry, and especially those insensitive to the plight of the disenfranchised around them. He knew, growing up as he did in Nazi Germany and later as a refugee traveling...Read More...
"Moment of Recognition" I have heard that self-esteem in children is related to their parents "seeing them." That is, a child needs a care-giver to see something in him or her that the child does not or cannot yet see. When I said to my little daughter many years ago, "what a beautiful painting of a horse, you are such a great artist" I was planting a seed of self-definition. Later, as adults, we find ourselves looking for our own talents, gifts, and directions -- no longer able or wiling to let others define us... Read More...
LEADERSHIP CONVERSATIONS
Myra Tanita Weaves Diverse Worlds Together
Myra Tanita started as an intern over twenty years ago at world-renowned Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Today she is Chief Operating Officer, responsible for day-to-day management of the Center, which employs 2,700 people. She graciously agreed to offer insights from her leadership career.
Q. Myra, what is your background and how has it influenced your leadership style?
A. I'm Japanese American with roots in Hawaii and Los Angeles. As a child, my parents emphasized sensitivity to how different families do things. In one house, people took off their shoes; in another they didn't. If they ate their pot roast raw, you learned to eat it that way, too. It's not better or worse, just different, and my parents encouraged respect for that -- from which I gained an acute sense of observation and attention. Growing up in the Hawaii countryside and the city of Los Angeles, I learned to move between the worlds, where everything, including the language was different.
The thing about Fred Hutchinson is that it, too, is a set of diverse worlds. The basic scientists are different from the clinical folks who are different from the statisticians and epidemiologists. It's important in my role to understand what each group needs, their definition of success, and how they work. I need to support them all.
Q. Would you say you are an extrovert or an introvert in terms of your style?
A. A raging introvert. So much so that early on I thought perhaps I didn't have the temperament for leading and that I should do something else. But I realized that this work is something I want to do and I could do it my way. It does mean I have to pay attention to my temperament. I remind myself that to do a good job I have to connect with others, build relationships and let go of the idea of doing only what is comfortable. But, hey, the best stuff we do can also be the most uncomfortable -- like any form of learning and growing.
Q. What would you say you have learned about yourself in your current role?
A. What I keep relearning every day is that "I don't know." I can't take care of everything and I must rely on what others know, which is humbling. Because my focus is both on collective knowledge and what specific people know, I learn to trust and have faith every day. My constant practice is to ask myself, "What is it I don't know?" and "What is it I think I know that I really don't?" Then I usually have to go to someone else and listen. It's a cool thing to unearth personal assumptions in this way -- and I get to laugh at myself a lot.
Q. I remember attending a meeting once with you and a team of leaders where you offered a gentle but surprising challenge to them about their assumptions. They were concerned about not having a place at the table with the senior vice presidents who guide the Hutch as a scientific enterprise. You replied, "There really is no table. If you want a table, you'll need to invite them here, to yours." It was direct and open but not at all abrasive. Do you remember that? What was your intention?
A. I recall the meeting and my comment reflected my experience of what happens when something important slips by and goes unsaid. I always try to say what I personally would want to be told. I don't know if I would call it "the truth" so much as simply sharing what I've seen. The leaders in the room assumed that a table existed and they were not at it. That didn't correspond to my experience and I also thought they had a wonderful chance to take charge themselves, seizing an opportunity.
Q. Over time, what do you think people learn from you?
A. Perhaps they learn something about how true change in organizations can happen. It's not a linear, reasoned process, even in an organization based on science and reason, and it also doesn't come simply from a mandate or greater power. Most often, it's incremental, requiring patience, more the way water flows a drop at a time. It may take a long while for a situation to come to the point where people are suggesting changes that might help them, and maybe you suspected it long before and have suggested some of these same points along the way, but forcing people or arguing with them about it is not the method.
Q. How do you stay energized and motivated?
A. This place is all about being in my head, so to stay centered I like tangible activity. I garden, mostly vegetables and flowers -- food and things of beauty. I do Tai Chi, too. I get "grounded" by literally putting my feet on the earth. I like to feel the earth's energy under the soles of my feet, then come up my spine and out my finger tips.
I also knit and weave. When I do so, I think at the same time. There's an interplay, you know, between warp and weft, and I like using unconventional materials. It's structured, gradual and repetitive. It brings order out of chaos and beautiful things together.
THE SPIRIT OF LEADERSHIP
Links to deeper sources of leading
· Bridging the Gap Between Inner Life and Outer Work. Karen Tse is the founder of International Bridges to Justice, an organization working globally to ensure basic legal rights for ordinary citizens. Her work has required eminent personal courage. In this "Founder's Reflection" (pdf) she tells her story and explores the groundwork for an amazing, values-based organization.
· Talk about Weaving Diverse Worlds! The Playing for Change project unites musicians, globally and soulfully using composite tracks to show how we might break down barriers among everyone. If you don't know about this effort, start with this one, "Stand by Me." (Another of my personal favorites is #47 -- beginning with this: "It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.")
· The Question Is Not "When Did You Become a Poet?" In this 2.5 minute video Naomi Shihab Nye reads a poem called, "One Boy Told Me" that explodes with joyful metaphors and reminds us where they all begin.
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