Where's the Dog Whisperer?

Cesar Milan, the popular television star, trains pet owners. He teaches owners to project a calm and assertive presence toward their animals. The unruly pets respond dramatically. Their neuroses evaporate. They calm down, become obedient and may even be grateful for the presence of pack leadership. Owner-pet teamwork flourishes. Milan ought to expand his practice. Leaders in congress could use his training.

Cycle of Angst

The morning after the congressional $700 billion bail out bust, Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor wrote, "Two cities joined Monday in a mutually reinforcing cycle of angst and fear that shook the nation's political and financial foundations and sent the Dow spiraling into its worst one-day loss." While Taylor doesn't explain how the cycle of angst and fear (in Washington D.C. and New York City) actually worked, the capitol was a laboratory of illustration.
Lawmakers, resonsible for making a clear and rational decision on a critical issue created instead opportunities to give and receive offense from and to each other.
Given the behaviors, we can have no confidence that non-anxious and calm leadership was used to explore, consider, think through and act on a best course.

Every Ten Minutes

A good friend, a music teacher, and I were talking about the need for improvisation in the classroom. He describes public education administrators as rigid formula-following folks who advocate the use of processes often dreamed up in someplace other than the local classroom.
My friend mentioned a conversation he had with an administrator who asked him, "How often do you modify your cirriculum"? My friend's answer, "Every ten minutes". It wasn't the answer the administrator expected. The standard frequency is about four times during the school year.
But, the music teacher understands the fluidity of the learning/teaching moment and how he must continuously adjust his environment to make learning happen for his students.

Plan on more anxiety

I had a conversation with a bright woman who runs an important and successful community theatre. She had invited a group supporting a state referendum measure to use the facility for their mission advocating for a particular vote. Another user of the facility was offended and angered. She called the decision "inappropriate". My friend was managing her own disappointment at the reaction but remained confident of her decision on behalf of activism. Later, I wrote her an email, a portion of which stated, "The sabotage and resistance you get to this sort of thing has absolutely nothing to do with the correctness of your decision. It has everything to do with the current state of peoples’ anxieties. Expect this condition to worsen around you before it gets better. Anxiety inviting phenomena are growing around us. Your best response is to remain confident enough of your position so that you refuse to enter into others’ fears about whatever they are fearful about".
Things are scarey. They're getting scarier. Resist the powerful pull to join others in their deepening anxieites about their lives.

"Blame Displacement"

Blame displacement is identified by Ed Friedman in his one of the main symptoms of a chronically anxious system. When organizations or companies respond to challenges in ways that are defensive instead of adventurous a "vacumn" of leadership can ocurr. Chronic anxiety becomes a "hot potato" that gets handed off to whoever will take it. Intead of addressing the underlying emotional dynamics of which the anxiety is a symptom, individuals seek to avoid personal responsibility and place blame elsewhere. A chronically anxious system is the opposite of "the buck stops here" as a policy. The answer is not on placing the blame where it belongs, but rather on each leader taking responsibilty for their own functioning and holding others accountable for theirs.

First, get a million dollars! Then...

I confess a weakness for "pathetically stupid" comedy. Animal House, Naked Gun 2 1/2, National Lampoon's Summer Vacation; you know the type. Even after 20 hears and hearing his jokes again and again, I still find my funny bone especially vulnerable to the humor of Steve Martin as he stands on stage with an arrow through his head.

One of my favorite bits from Mr. Martin involved him being a "success coach" and giving financial advice; "Yes, you too can be a millionaire and NOT pay taxes!" With cavalier confidence, the direction continues - "First, get a million dollars; Then..." It never fails to make me laugh. I think what strikes me as so funny about this is that, in giving his sage advice, he completely glosses over the hardest part.

A lot of advise for leaders found in many of the books and seminars today are like this joke. The "million dollars" - the hardest part of leadership, and the part that takes the longest amount of time is completely glossed over. Most "how to" guides on organizational development completely ignore or at least quickly gloss over the most important quality of a leader - maturity. Without this quality, all the technique in the world will be in vain.

Some things, important things, take time. They are worth slowing down for and cultivating daily over a long period of time.

Once you "get a million dollars; then..."

No Time for Losers?

A friend sent me this Dilbert cartoon last week. At first glance, it appears to depict an insensitive (if not abusive), cynical and close minded boss (read "leader"). The more I looked at it however, the more it struck me as not a bad example of true leadership.

Before anyone wastes their time "flaming" me in this blog, let me state a disclaimer: No employee deserves to be called a "loser." Leadership is not an excuse to be abusive.

With that out of the way let me explain what I see in this vignette by way of true leadership:

1. The leader refused to accommodate to what he considered to be a waste of his time. (it is done in a rather cruel way and we are not given anything worthy that this leader might do with his time).
   
2. The focus isn’t about accommodating the “needs” of others. It is focused on what the leader needs. You can’t lead effectively unless you are squarely focused on YOUR OWN needs. This is the only accurate data you have for feedback. (and the most accurate data you have within this dataset is the information coming from your body) Everything else is guesswork. I don’t advocate for a lack of awareness of the needs of others but I do observe that it presents a focus that pulls the leader out of touch with self and forces them to operate according to their internal “guesswork” of what the other person really needs.
   
3. The leader refused to get caught up in symptoms. (Ok I know this is a stretch but I wat to make the point jus the same.) The needs expressed by others are often not a real needs. They are often symptoms of a deeper need. The leader will not see the “need behind the need” unless he/she is squarely in touch with his/her own needs. Lack of awareness of one’s own needs blinds one to the true needs of others and forces the leader to “chase after phantoms” – symptoms that keep shifting and become like a shell game, never allowing the leader to truly be successful. The leader’s usual response to this is to try harder, to be a better guesser, to be more sensitive. This only feeds the cycle, wastes more energy and further demoralizes the leader. The leader finds himself/herself on a "leadership treadmill" with no way to gain significant ground.
   
4. The actions/decisions of this leader are not reactive to external data. He is internally driven by his own authority. A leader who is focused is likely to be accused of being closed minded.
   
5. This leader cannot be held hostage by having to accommodate the immaturity of others.

Make no mistake about it. Leadership involves perversity!