An Intriguing Question

It was our first meeting together. He was a regional manager and I was an executive coach. As I sat down in the chair across from his desk, he put down the papers he had been reading when I came in, and turned to give me his full attention. “I have a question for you before we get started,” he remarked. “What do you like most about the work you do?” 

This was not the question that I thought would start our time together. Often, I am the person who speaks first in this setting. And my first question often is “How can be of assistance or help to you at this time period?” Instead, he asked me the first question, and it was a very good question to boot. 

I don’t know why, but on the that particular morning, I really wasn’t prepared for his question. I recall my answer being disjointed. I rambled and made some comment to the effect that I liked working with a wide diversity people who were exploring challenging ideas. Clearly, I was on my back foot and struggling to regain my balance. 

He listened well, and then shared the following. “What I like most about my work is the opportunity to coach people, to really help them reach their full potential. I like helping them discover their strengths and learn how to use them in a wide diversity of situations. I particularly like it when that proverbial lightbulb comes on and they understand something for the first time. Those ‘aha moments’ just fill me with delight and really make my day.”

I just sat there nodding my head like a bobble doll on the dash board of an old, 1950’s Chevy. I agreed 100%. Furthermore, I wished that had been my answer to his question. Helping people reach their full potential is incredibly powerful for the coach and the person being coached. It is transformational on so many levels. 

Over the course of our short visit, it was clear to me that this person did not need an executive coach. They had the mindset and the skill set needed to totally fulfill the expectations of their job as a regional manager. They just needed a moment of encouragement to keep going in the direction they were currently moving toward. 

Decades later, I have reflected on this short visit and his intriguing question. I have come to the realization that we should be routinely asking ourself this question, and with those we coach and with those who are our colleagues. By understanding these answers, we will be better leaders and better managers. But most of all, we will be building on our own strengths and the strengths of others, too. And this is critical to the work we do each and every day. 

This week, ask yourself and many other people this intriguing question: “What do you like most about the work you do?” And then listen carefully. You will learn a lot about them and yourself. You may even encounter your own “aha moment.”

© Geery Howe 2024

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change

A Friendly Wave

The other day when walking down to the Post Office to get the day’s mail, every car and truck that passed me, waved as they went by. I just smiled, because this is a normal, every day experience in our small rural community. 

Many years ago, a friend from California came to visit us. As we walked uptown together, she paused and asked my wife and I a question, “Does everyone wave to everybody in this small town?”

We looked at her and responded together, “Yes.”

“Why?”, she asked.

“It’s just what we do around here. It is one small way to show our connection and kindness to our friends and neighbors,” I explained. “We wave because we care. We wave because it is a polite way of showing that we are all in this together.”

She looked puzzled for a moment and said, “Interesting. And if I wave to these people, will they wave back?”

“Give it whirl and see,” I said.

For the next five minutes, she waved to everyone. People walking. People driving. People standing outside the post office visiting. And sure enough, everyone waved back to here.

“I like this,” she said. “It’s a nice thing.”

I smiled and said, “It’s part of small town life.”

Whether we are walking our dog at dawn, walking to the post office to get the mail, or driving to the local library to return a book, we all wave to each other. I don’t know everyone who I pass by, or who passes us by, but everyone gets a wave no matter the hour. I know it is small thing. I also know it makes a difference. 

Christopher Willard, PsyD, in his book, How We Grow Through What We Go Through: Self-Compassion Practices for Post-Traumatic Growth (Sounds True, 2022), writes, “The social contagion effect, observed by Emory University’s James Fowler and Yale’s Nicholas Christakis, shows that acts of kindness and generosity spread from one person to the next. In numerous studies, they demonstrated that merely observing acts of generosity inspires a ripple effect of ‘downstream reciprocity’ in others up to three degrees of separation from you. Researchers have also observed many of the same neurotransmitters in both givers and receivers of kindness, although there’s a greater amount in the givers. In one study, researchers asked subjects to spend five dollars either on themselves or someone else. To the surprise of the researchers and the subjects, those who gave away the five dollars felt better than those who spent the money on themselves. Neuroscientist Richard J. Davidson has said, ‘The best way to activate positive-emotion circuits in the brain is through generosity’.”

In our small, rural community, waving to people as they pass by is one way we show our generosity and kindness. It signals we are all in this together. And we know the ripple effect of this kindness goes deep into the community and far out in the rural landscape that surrounds our small town. 

This week, be kind and wave. You will activate many positive emotional circuits in your life and in their life. You will be making a difference all day long when you do this. 

© Geery Howe 2024

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change

Out In Left Field

Over the course of my life and career, I have heard people talk about someone being “out in left field.” It is implied that the person is unusual, eccentric, odd, or strange in some way. In particular, the focus is on their thinking and perspective, which is not like other people. In short, they are considered different. 

Whenever I hear someone use the phrase “out in left field,” I am reminded of my own elementary school experiences playing baseball. After the teams were picked in gym class, I was always placed out in left field. In reality, there was the out field and then the “far” out field. I was always placed in the far out field if not the far far outfield. 

The reason for this decision by the team captain was a simple one. I could not throw a baseball worth beans. I couldn’t even hit the broad side of a barn as they say in the midwest. 

The real reason for my inability is that I grew up in a soccer family. I could kick a ball from the far outfield toward home base, but I could not throw a baseball accurately in that direction. During my growing up years, there were no games of playing catch with my dad. If we played anything, it was soccer.

The upshot of this choice is that I was way out in left field on a regular basis. And no one in elementary school could hit a ball that far. If they did, it would have been considered a home run. 

So, what did I do in the far out field? 

In reality, not much. I mostly watched the clouds. I listened to the birds and the wind. I marveled at the blooming dandelions. I was in my own little nature world, seeing and noticing everything. 

When the innings changed, I was always surprised. They had to call me in. And given the distance, I had to jog in before the first batter stepped up to plate. 

When it came time for me to bat, I routinely struck out. Before glasses, I couldn’t really see the ball. For that matter, I also couldn’t really see the black board in the classroom very well. On one level, this would explain my learning disability. After getting glasses, I could see the ball, but I could not get the timing right to actually hit it. So after every inning, it was back out to the far out field for me.

As a baseball team, some days we won and some days we lost. It really didn’t make much difference to me. I just enjoyed being out in left field where I noticed everything. I could see the whole field from my vantage point while others only saw things from their position. As a result, when I wasn’t focused on nature, I knew when someone was going to steal a base. I could tell when the batter was going to bunt by their stance. However, because I was so far out in left field, no one paid much attention to my observations. They were focused on the inning and not focused on the whole game and the inning. By not seeing the big picture, they did not understand the strategy of the other team.

Now, when someone tells me a person is out in left field, I smile. First, I know they are having a good time just like I did. Second, I know they are seeing a ton of things, and therefore understand more about what is going on than most people give them credit for during the game. Third, I know that I need to visit with them and learn what they understand. Being unusual, eccentric, odd, or strange does not mean they are not engaged. It just means they are engaged in their own way. Therefore, I need to have the courage to connect with them and to listen them. From my experience, those out in left field often hold the keys to improving things both operationally and strategically. 

© Geery Howe 2024

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change

Broken And Whole

Right now, the hours in each day, and the days within each week are all running together. Even the weeks within each month are running together. Still, as leaders, we keep moving forward, pushing ourselves to keep up with the endless amounts of work and problems. 

Then, one morning, we pause in the midst of this endless running, and think to ourself, “What day of the week is it? What month is it?” Then, we realize it is a Monday and it is May. 

Again, we pause, and think to ourself, “How did that happen? Just a moment ago, I was getting ready for Valentine’s Day. Now, I have to get ready for Mother’s Day. Where did the time go? Where did I go? What just happened?”

What happened is that we experienced Blursday, an extended time period of going and going. We were living and moving at the speed of software. And, as a result, life just became a steady blur. We no longer remember what happened, where we went, or even what we got done. We just kept moving forward faster and faster until we arrived at this moment on this day, exhausted, overwhelmed, and worn to the core. 

In its simplest form, life happened. We do not even know if we blinked, but here we are, feeling broken by the pace and the experience. While everything we did and focused on more likely was important, we haven’t a clue how it all got done. We just know that we can’t keep this up forever. 

Furthermore, we know that this is not the life we want for ourselves, and for our family. We know that something has to change. Otherwise, the next pause and realization will be around Thanksgiving or Christmas., At this rate, we will have missed all of summer and fall including the family vacation. The experience of Blursday is real and it has a price. 

Author and poet, Mark Nepo notes, “It seems we run our lives like trains, speeding along a track laid down by others, going so fast that what we pass blurs on by. Then we say we’ve been there, done that. The truth is that blurring by something is not the same as experiencing it.” And all of us want to experience life, not blur by it. We do not want to live life and miss it all at the same moment. 

Parker Palmer in his book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity & Getting Old (Berrett-Koehler, 2018), writes about “the journey toward broken-wholeness.” Given we are routinely experiencing multiple weeks of living in a blur, I think it is time this week to sit down, and ponder this idea of “broken-wholeness.” It is time to recreate our life and our way of living. 

When I think of the word wholeness, I am reminded that the words, health, healing, wholeness and that which is holy, all have their original in the old English word hale. All four of these words are interconnected. From my perspective, all four words are integral to the journey toward broken-wholeness.

First, the word health is defined as being whole and sound. Second, healing, which is directly connected to health, is defined as the process of making or becoming sound or healthy again. The definitions of health and healing involve three elements: an intervention, a process, and an outcome. The result of all three is the restoration of wholeness. 

From my vantage point, we can engage in a healing process or intervention that will generate wholeness. However, my life experience has taught me that the element which is holy plays an integral part to a true sense of wholeness. We can have alignment of body, mind and the social/emotional elements of life, but without the integration of that which is holy, it is not fully complete. When we engage that which is holy, we gain a greater depth of meaning, and perspective to our entire life journey. 

While our outer life may be fragmented, defined and challenging, I believe that wholeness is only truly attained in our inner life. Here, we can always grow, evolve and be transformed. This is the place where our true self can be revealed, become whole, and be maintained. As Parker Palmer notes, “True self is the self with which we arrive on earth, the self that simply wants us to be who we were born to be. True self tells us who we are, where we are planted in the ecosystem of life, what ‘right action’ looks like for us, and how we can grow more fully into our own potentials.” Our true self wants and seeks wholeness, because it understands that wholeness is what makes it true. 

And this is where the holy part comes into play. Father Richard Rohr remind us, “There is nothing that is not spiritual for those who have learned how to see. Pray for the grace to see things in their wholeness and not just in their parts, for the grace to reverence things before using them, dismissing them, or even trying to explain them.” Our wholeness is complete when we see the spiritual within the wholeness before us, not just the challenging parts. 

Mark Nepo builds on this perspective when he holds up the metaphorical mirror. As he writes, “We are so achievement-oriented that we often surge right by the true value of relating to what’s before us, because we think that accomplishing things will complete us, when it is experiencing life that will.” Experiencing the union of health, healing, wholeness and that which is holy reveals to us, individually and collectively, that our true self is always a growing, evolving, and transforming self. It is not limited by our challenges, or our broken places. Instead, each of these difficulties give us the opportunity to shed the misaligned expectations placed on us by others, or to shed our own unrealistic expectations that we have placed upon ourself. When this shedding takes place and that which is holy is reclaimed in the process, we are given the chance to live more authentically and honestly. In essence, we are given the opportunity to embrace our broken places and, at the exact same time, to honor our wholeness in the midst of our brokenness. 

All of this made sense to me this year on a Saturday afternoon in late February. Given we were having such an early spring in Iowa, I had cleaned up the numerous perennial flower beds around our home. Next, I spread fresh hardwood bark mulch on them to cut down on summer weeding, support the retaining of moisture if we encounter another drought like we did last summer, and to create an optimal growing environment for all of the plants. 

On this particular day, I was spreading some mulch by a lilac bush when I noticed a sliver of green had appeared on the lilac buds. I was amazed given it was February. This silver of green is called bud break which is quickly followed by the emergence of tiny green leaves. 

All of a sudden, I realized that my definition of broken-wholeness was defined by the word broken. I defined this word as in broken down, which would translate into broken down-wholeness. But this is not the definition that the lilac bud showed me that afternoon. The lilac bud had a different definition of broken-wholeness. For the lilac bush on this warm, early spring afternoon, broken was defined as broken open, not broken down. 

With my bag of mulch in hand, I realized that I was surround by living examples of broken open wholeness. I was surrounded by the innate wholeness in all things wanting to come forth. Be it in flowers, trees, or people. The divine intelligence in all things is constantly seeking wholeness.

On that late February afternoon, I was being broken open. I too was in the midst of a spring transformation. At this point in the seasons of my life, the lilac bush was teaching me to open up and bloom, to break open and achieve a greater wholeness. I just stood there with my bag of mulch in hand and was grateful. Now, I understood the journey of broken-wholeness in a whole new way. 

Blursday happens to the best of us. It is a profound and complex challenge. But with awareness and understanding, we can transform this way of living into a new and better way of living. We can thoughtfully purse a journey toward broken-wholeness, and open our lives to a new level of wholeness. I know this because I learned it from a lilac bush on a sunny, Saturday afternoon in late February. 

© Geery Howe 2024

Geery Howe, M.A. Executive Coach in Leadership, Strategic Planning, and Organizational Change