Stressing Down the Work Environment: The "Tea Mind"

This is the one time of year that the season helps us easily get in touch with our natural selves. Many people taking vacation, being enveloped in the beauty of the outdoors and its calming capacity. All of us feeling just a little less perpetually stressed because of the opportunity to take a break.

If only we could reproduce that feeling of being relaxed and less in emotional turmoil more regularly in the work environment. The Japanese call this the “tea mind”, Zen-like in its awareness, at rest with clear attention to the moment, seeing things freshly. Those who meditate regularly would know very well what this feels like.

There is no shortage of data reinforcing the stressfulness of the work environment. Research from Linda Duxbury at Carlton University and Chris Higgins from the University of Western Ontario clearly points the finger at overload: balancing family with work demands. Middle managers are particularly burdened. Harvard’s Teresa Amabile blames the trap of time pressure that builds over the week. Her research demonstrates that creativity takes a nose dive due to “pressure hangovers”.

To offset the tread mill of time pressure, Amabile recommends strategies that help the “tea mind” flourish, similar to what happens when we take a relaxing vacation. She encourages “ruthlessly guarding protected blocks of the work week” for individual reflection. To work, this shielding of self and staff from distractions and interruptions must be an accepted norm.

The surrendering to the present, “mindfulness” in meditation terminology, releases emotional build ups. In turn, it enables our inner worlds, our inner wisdom to be more available to us.

Toronto’s Poet Laureate, Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, who “walks the talk” on mindfulness, expresses the value of the “tea mind” by comparing it to the need for oxygen. “You can’t live without oxygen; nor can you live without primal human reflection.” The impact when we return to being with others is powerful.

In Di Cicco’s words, these generate “compassionate moments” in any “civic interaction”. They are “authentic moments”.

Good for everyone!

Patience Wearing Thin: Too Many Preventable Crises

Here we go again: more infrastructure crises that need not have happened. This week’s collapse of a major bridge in Minnesota is becoming a recurring nightmare about public safety. The pattern is all too familiar. Somewhere along the line, leaders in key positions have made decisions, or passed on making decisions that would have prevented catastrophe.

It’s not as if there is a lack of solid data. Just as with the Katrina crisis, a prior report by the American Society of Civil Engineers’ was dusted off and re-read in the new context. There was the stark warning in its 2005 report: considerable “structurally deficient” and “functionally obsolete” infrastructure, including the Minnesota bridge. That’s hard to take when people lose their lives.

In fairness, our political leaders must choose from a multitude of competing priorities. They suffer from constant information overload as they wade through reports from credible sources. Many of their decisions no doubt do prevent crises. However, this priority area on roads, bridges, dams, water and sewer pipes, etc., is getting ahead of them. The short term and the long term are not in synch.

One author in the newspapers suggested that the engineers aren’t good at lobbying. Whether that’s a fact is beside the point. Does it have to boil down to whom is better at lobbying than another?

In our complex world, perhaps this is a reality for leaders. Leading up (read “lobbying”) is a fact of life and a skill to be honed. As Michael Useem asserts in Leading Up: How to Lead Your Boss So You Both Win, upward leadership assures that advice arrives from all points of the compass.

In case after case, Useem demonstrates that leaders’ coaching the leaders above to ‘macro think’ “transforms incipient disaster into shining triumph”. Great navigation skills are essential to ensure that the responsibility for leading up does not end up a career-limiting exercise in frustration. Thus, thoughtful leadership attentive to the process is a must. As the Spanish ambassador to Tehran said during the 1979 hostage crisis following the Iranian Revolution: “Patience is a bitter cup that only the strong can drink.”

As in Golf So in Management: A Mind Up to Speed With the "Game"

After a thrilling British Open in which Ireland’s Padraig Hamilton outwitted Sergio Garcia, we’re awed again by Hunter Mahan’s opening round of 62 at the Canadian Open. While most of us are content to boast a hole-in-one once in our amateur golf careers, Hunter racked up three eagles in a game. He attributes his current round of success with improvements to his mind. In his words: “My mind is kinda catching up to my game.”

Based on the post British Open tournament press interviews, we can conclude Padraig gets it, Sergio, not yet. The latter blamed divine intervention for his almost win. Padraig stuck to hard work, some mental toughness when the chips were down and mental agility along the way. Lots of humility there.

In golf, so in managing and leading in the truest sense. The “game” is as much about “feel” as technique. It is not behaviour modification, such as “I must do active listening more”. It is a deeper sense of how you think and learn, how others do and making the link accordingly. Educators call it “deep learning”. Very much akin to the journey from novice to expert. This is no easy task.

The reality in today’s work environment is sobering. In 30 Reasons Employees Hate Their Managers, based on the opinions of 50,000 employees in Canada and the United States, Bruce Katcher cites a litany of employee woes about managers:
-don’t listen
-don’t respect us
-don’t appreciate us
-don’t give us enough authority
-will punish us if we make unpopular suggestions

All of these laments are solvable if managers better understand their own minds. To be at the top of their games, pro golfers practice “deliberate learning”. That is, they practice self-observation and feedback followed by practice based on their new insights. The discipline of constant improvement, a deep learning process, is understood as vital to being at the top of their game more often than not. Deliberate practice is essential to great management too.

Note, it’s not technique only or the tasks at hand. It’s about relationship. If you begin to see the world from another’s point of view and you accept it, as a starting point, without judgment, you are on your way to learning and improving. Top pro golfers and other elite athletes fight first with themselves to raise the bar on performance. So relationship with self, in the context of management, is as crucial as relationship with others.

Sophocles to Conrad Black: Wish We'd Had a Chat

The contrast in leadership stories was hard to miss. Toronto’s Ed Mirvish, who dubbed himself, “Honest Ed” was described as “an icon who never put himself on a pedestal” and whose kindness to people, especially new immigrants to the city, gave them a sense of dignity and belonging. The adjectives for Conrad Black ran the gamut of arrogant, an inflated sense of entitlement and a disdain for anyone who put obstacles in his way.

Who would you rather be as a leader, let alone a person in this world? Conrad has gotten himself into a mighty mess. Too bad he didn’t take some of Sophocles’ wisdom to heart.

One of the greatest hazards for leaders, according to Sophocles, is the suppression of dialogue with knowledgeable and concerned people around them. In the play Antigone, Sophocles drives home the message that a tough task for all leaders is to resist their own instincts and commitments. In that leaders often face a messy and chaotic combination of feelings, thoughts, facts and analyses to sift through, Sophocles recommends good deliberation. That should include a clear examination of history and a sensible assessment of the consequences if certain actions are taken. Sophocles underscores that the exercise is not an individual but a communal one.

He pushes his point further: Listening is not enough. That which prevents going down dangerous roads is a deep regard for people.

Much will be written in the days ahead as to why and how Conrad Black shot himself in the foot with his own personality. These are the mysteries of life. Only Lord Black really knows. That’s why self-awareness is a lifelong challenge in developing leadership effectiveness.

See the books by Joseph L. Badaracco’s Questions of Character and Karen Armstrong’s A Short History of Myth for more insight.

Preparing for the Unexpected: A Deep Dive in Disaster Management

After three days immersed in the views of disaster management specialists, I’m ready to cocoon. They’ve got me convinced we should prepare better for the unexpected. But, what a lot of work! Business impact analysis (BIA) and all that flows from it is no easy task.

It’s an important part of leading and leadership---to anticipate and be ready to adapt to a crisis. How many leaders of organizations large and small pay enough attention to this? Not many is my guess.

The 17th World Conference on Disaster Management at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre reinforced what the military routinely does: train for the expected and unexpected. The latter is the most difficult. The leadership landscape, military included, is littered with “disasters”---the 2003 blackout, Katrina, SARS, Iraq, the RCMP plus multitudes of train and plane accidents, floods, etc.

The real message is that many disasters, both large and small, can be prevented with smarter and more diligent thinking and action. Richard van Pelt from Pasadena City College made that point over and over again. His visual depiction of one disaster after another around the world that should not have happened underlined that disaster management is a daily requirement.

That means creating an organization of leaders in which openness, transparency, wide sharing of information, creative thinking, and evidenced-based and ethical management abound. When done well, business impact analysis will be built into the “DNA” of the culture.

Check out www.wcdm.org and www.ccep.ca for more on this topic of preparedness.

Governance Rehab Comes Calling in Florida: Water and Turf Wars

Wherever I go I like to study the local environment, see what’s going on. Being from water plentiful Canada, the water woes of Floridians caught my attention on a recent trip to Jupiter. With water levels perilously low due to sporadic rainfall, saving water is emerging as a major issue. But taking such action is not so easy with entrenched policies that prevent effective individual action. Silly stories abound pointing to policy-making at its worst.

Take a homeowner on Marcos Island, near Naples. City officials made him get rid of $15,000.00 worth of artificial grass in 2005 on the grounds it was offensive and might pose an environmental hazard. In protest, he painted his house with polka dots.

Developers and home owners associations fare no better in their strategy to conserve water. Or, should I suggest—anti-strategy? Near Orlando, a resident tried replacing sod with plantings that required less water. The developer stopped him in his tracks. These stories are increasingly reported across the state. Many homeowners’ associations still require grass lawns with certain shades of green. Alternatives such as sturdy ground cover and drought-resistant plants are not allowed. The battle is heating up as more enlightened homeowners defy the out of date policies.

Leading change is one of the most difficult aspects of leadership. Florida’s water and turf wars illustrate just how much leaders from the grassroots level upward cling to tradition often far beyond when the facts are in. Many hope that other solutions such as desalination of water will provide the needed respite and off set any need for water conservation. Others might want to lead the way but are caught with so many competing interests, they don’t know where to start. But, non-action and placing one’s trust in hope comes with high risk. The situation can quickly devolve into folly and cause untold extra costs.

There are times when political action is the only way for change to happen at the pace that is required. The water issue seems fragmented with no coherent strategy. As with all change, that’s the beginning of the journey. At this stage of the issue, politicians are well-positioned to bring some coherence to a vital quality of life issue. Good policy sooner rather than later can guide sensible action right down to the homeowners’ associations.

In the absence of comprehensive poitical action, courageous individuals and researchers will continue to put forth their ideas. The debate will get louder. A politician somewhere, if not already, will step forward. In the end, it is individual action that counts no matter who you are.

Hanging Out With Twenty Somethings: A Leadership Fitness Check Up

When you are outnumbered by three to one for several days with the twenty something generation, it’s a Margaret Mead anthropological experience. Demographers are on a hot streak again educating baby boom leaders in the art and science of welcoming the Gen Xers to the workplace. When theory and practice come together, it’s an eye opener.

Picture this. We’re on our way to dinner heading to the parking lot. One young man is holding a large garbage bag in his right hand, a cell in his left wandering around looking for the dumpster while having an animated phone conversation. The other young man is on his cell. The young woman is checking her text messages. I’m the only one determinedly working on my “slow” philosophy simply enjoying the surroundings.

The car is no different. Text messaging and cell phone talk. No good conversation here.

At the restaurant, things improve. Talk meanders to hot women and men among the patrons. I do my “be interested” not “interesting” approach by asking a few questions of each. What do they think of the water shortage problem? How are things going? The young people get engaged and put forth some fascinating views. I’m now more in my element!

I am beginning to tune in. I am in a different culture. Just soak it up and enjoy it. Let go of my own “way”. So, I decide to sit back and just “be”. Isn’t that what anthropologists really do?

I remember when I was in my twenties. Very keen. Full of new ideas. So happy to be out in the work place earning money, being independent. But, the work environment was not entirely welcoming and that feeling of being out of place persisted for many years. It is waning somewhat now because more of us in the baby boomer crowd are in leadership positions. Yet, with each successive wave of the generations, the culture divide is never far away. It’s a reality even more so with increasing diversity of ethnic backgrounds.

Technology adds to the complexity. The younger generation of workers has been raised on Web-based tools---chat rooms, wikis, blogs, personal broadcasting, peer-to-peer networks and the ubiquity of the cell phone. Their brains are hard wired differently. I watch them with amazement as they update their websites taking advantage of free ware to make picture collages, add new friends, alter the graphics. I’m counting on “Web Tools” for Dummies to being me up to speed.

The advent of the Web has added an element of pace and a new means of conversation for leaders to grasp and work with. The Net Generation moves fast and takes no prisoners. As demographers keep reminding us, young workers want feedback now. They want action asap. Yet, like in my younger days, they face a generation ahead of them that seems slower off the mark and resistant. In our defense, we value process and some reflective check points (call it managing risk).

There’s an upside. I can imagine that NetGen group is developing a new adaptive strength---tolerance. In turn, it is fostering, at an early age, the development of valuable skills in mentoring and coaching upward. Maybe that’s a good thing as during my twenty something days, the communication was decidedly one way.

For the baby boomers, let’s take some tips from the anthropologists: seek out the Net Gen’s views. Immerse and listen. Learn.

In his poem Experience, Ralph Waldo Emerson celebrated and encouraged differences:

Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them, they prove to be many colored lenses which paint the world their own hue and each shows only what lies in its focus...[we] need the whole society to give the symmetry we seek.

When solving a problem, diversity almost always trumps individual ability. When making a prediction, diversity matters just as much as ability. Scott Page explains this in considerable detail in his book, The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies. The challenge is to work with not against it, especially regarding Gen X. For baby boomers, it’s a tall order and one that is no different than that which confronted those that came before us. We have no time to waste though if we want the best and the brightest to be on our teams.