What Gives You Hope These Days?

We were catching up via e-mail when he asked me the following question: 

“What gives you hope these days?”

My initial answer focused on being in touch with family and close friends, spending quality time with my wife, and visiting with two friends from our faith community. Yet, over time, I have continued to think about this question, and now I want to give a more in-depth answer.

So, here are some more things that give me hope in the midst of this global pandemic:

- the many young entrepreneurs I’ve met who are starting new ventures in spite of what is happening in the market place. Their creativity is inspiring.

- the many teams I hear about who come together rather than fall part when they are overwhelmed. Their commitment to each other is uplifting in a world that is so polarized. 

- the many new books written by people who are role modeling their faith and their compassion. Their willingness to speak out and speak up encourages me to find my voice and to support others to do likewise.

- the many people who work in the areas of justice, equity, diversity and inclusion. Their ability to see the worth and potential of everyone reminds me that there is that of the Divine in all people.

- the many acts of kindness that I have witnessed between parents and children. Their mutual love gives me hope about what the upcoming generation will achieve. 

- the many moments of being out in nature where I can connect with the beauty of the natural world. This reminds me that the sacred is all around us.

- the many periods of quiet reflection where I rediscover calmness in the midst of volatility. This reminds me that I am not alone in this journey and that I am stronger than I think I am. 

During the coming days, I encourage you to reflect on this question, too. What gives you hope these days? And when you have found your answer, I encourage you to share it with others. We need more hope, and to be hopeful as we move through the coming weeks and months. 

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

The Three Burdens of Leadership

When it comes to being a leader, getting the job and doing the job are two very different experiences. After years of hard work, applications and interviews, some people are given the opportunity and the title of being a leader. For many, this is the pinnacle of their career, and the reward for all their hard work. And then, one day they realize that being a leader is a lot harder than they thought.

As an executive coach, I have spent many hours with leaders helping them through the pressures and difficulties of being a leader. Together, we process the reality that their time no longer belongs to just themselves. They now realize that everyone wants to be on their schedule or wants a few minutes of their time in order to discuss an issue or a problem. Furthermore, they realize that they have to keep getting the work done in spite of the multiple back to back meetings and constantly changing list of priorities. For people new to the land of leadership, being busy, drained and overwhelmed is a new reality.

I think the challenge is that we rarely talk about the three most difficult burdens that come with the position and the title of leadership. The first burden of leadership is the burden of responsibility. As one works their way up to a senior position or enterprise level position of leadership, the burden of responsibility increases. You are no longer just responsible for your actions. Now you are responsible for the actions of others and you are responsible to deliver on the strategic commitments that have been made plus the subsequent operational changes that need to follow. 

In the past, your individual effort, discipline and will could make a difference. Now, you can not control all that is happening. Often, you can only influence it. Yet, you are still responsible for the outcome.

The second burden is the burden of accountability. Many people who become leaders are comfortable being held accountability. And because of their past experiences up until that point in their career, they have been successful. But once you have become a leader, particularly a senior leader, you have to hold other people accountable. This involves dealing with conflicts and problems, be that at the personnel level, team level or divisional level. 

Furthermore, once you begin doing this level of accountability, you come to realize that their failure is not just a reflection on their actions but it also is a reflection on you and your actions or lack of action. Then the phrase by Kevin Cashman, “Leaders get what they exhibit and what they tolerate,” takes on a whole new meaning. 

The third burden is the burden of confidentiality. When one becomes a leader, particularly at the senior level, you will enter into a world of information that you can not share or discuss with anyone except with other senior leaders. You also begin to grasp the strategic direction of the company and start to realize the short and long term impact of these choices. 

The burden of confidentiality becomes particularly real and painfully difficult when your company commits to mergers, acquisitions or strategic investments. Then, you understand that phrases like “downsizing” or “right sizing of the company to meet new competitive realities” will result in small and large groups of people loosing their jobs. Often, these are the same people you hired, trained, coached, and worked with over numerous years. The grief that comes with this realization is deep, painful and at times debilitating. You grasp what these strategic choices will do and at the same time you understand why these are the right choices to make if the company is going to survive and ultimately thrive within a constantly changing business environment. Still, it is painful and exhaustion.

The three burdens of leader, namely responsibility, accountability and confidentially, do not go away with time. They are present on day #1 and they will continue until your last day on the job. Often, they get heavier with time.

Still, there are ways to cope with these burdens. First, create and maintain a leadership team built on trust and healthy interpersonal communication. This will give you time and space to work through these burdens.

Second, learn to confront small issues before they become big problems. While it may be easier to avoid small problems, they do not go away and often create major cultural toxicity over time.

Third, define behavioral standards that will guide people’s actions and decisions. Clarity in thought and deed is the foundation of great companies. A person in a leadership position needs to constantly create and reinforce this clarity.

Fourth, role model these same standards with the utmost integrity. Our choices and actions as leaders always influence others. Being mindful of this means we most set the bar and maintain it at all times.

Finally, find people who can be your allies and confidants. Then, share deeply and openly with them. This will release the internal pressure of these burdens, and help you gain greater perspective and understanding.

Becoming a leader can be a powerful choice. While it can be challenging and difficult, it can also be rewarding and meaningful. When we choose to serve others and to bring about something good for those who we serve, we rise to the full potential of what I think a leader can be.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

The Ability To Discover Gifts Within Challenges

Challenges abounds. Struggles continue. Worry and anxiety are at an all time high. And many leaders are perplexed about how to proceed in the midst of it all. But occasionally, I meet a great leader, who in spite of it all, does not become unglued by the current reality. Instead, they have the ability to discover the gifts within their current challenges.

So, how do they do this?

While there are numerous books about this subject, I think the key is something that most people overlook because they think it is a simplistic answer. However, just because something is simple does not mean it is easy.

The best leaders I’ve met are good listeners. These individuals recognize that good listening begins with a commitment to understand rather than to respond or defend. They begin this process by listening with respect.

Now, on one hand, listening with respect again seems simplistic, but the precursor to respectful listening begins by creating safe physical spaces for dialogue. Rather than the leader sitting behind a massive desk and the employee sitting in a singular chair, I have seen so many leaders move out of their office and into a nearby conference room where all involved are then on the same level.

Next, when they listen with respect, they listen thoughtfully, especially to those who challenge their thinking. These leaders check to make sure that they understand what is being said. They try very hard to comprehend how people came to their conclusions.

Finally, those who discover the gifts within their challenges through active listening do one more thing. They listen carefully to themselves, too. They check the story they are telling themselves about what is going on. They also notice their behavior and their feelings in the midst of the conversation. They understand that it is too easy to invent a story about what is happening rather than comprehend the hard facts that are being explored.

In the world of leadership, there will always be challenges. It is par for the course. And many of them will be adaptive in nature. Still, as Ronald A. Heifetz and Donald L. Laurie note, “Solutions to adaptive challenges reside not in the executive suite but in the collective intelligence of employees at all levels.” The only way to activate that collective intelligence is through active and respectful listening.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

In The Pursuit Of Creativity, Become An Artist

When I was growing up, I was into arts and crafts. I loved to create things and I loved to draw. I doodled in every notebook I had as I made my way through middle school and into high school. 

In particular, I loved art class. Water colors, oil painting, and colored pencils. Still life scenes, nature scenes or people. I was fascinated by shading, colors and motion.

I also loved to build and make things with my hands. I made sand candles, tie-dyed t-shirts, pottery, silver smithing, wood carving and macrame. I worked in leather, strung beads, and even tried weaving. 

One year in school, my friend and I spent months creating a stop action movie of a little bi-plane taking off, flying and landing. We were beyond engaged. We were 100% committed to creative expression and exploration.

As I got older, all of those activities started to fade away. The world of work consumed my time and energy. Creativity took a back seat to logic, calendars, appointments, and problem solving.

However, I think creativity is essential to good leadership. It opens the mind to consider new options and possibilities. It allows one to look at challenges, people and complexity from multiple angles and perspectives.

Recently, I thoroughly enjoyed rereading the following book: Kleon, Austin. Steal Like An Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative, Workman Publishing, 2012. In this book, he asks a great question: “Where do you get your ideas?” I have pondered it for many hours.

When it comes to creativity, he tells us to “draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use - do the work you want to see done.” 

As we begin the process of proactivity planning for 2021 and 2022, it is time for us as leaders to create the organizations we want to work in, and to be the kind of leaders we want to follow. We need to reclaim our artistic side and surround ourselves at home and at work with creative pursuits. As Edward Tufte reminds us: “I have stared long enough at the glowing flat rectangles of computer screens. Let us give more time for doing things in the real world . . . plant a plant, walk the dogs, read a real book, go to the opera.” 

I look forward to hearing about your upcoming dog walks, the books you are reading, and the plants you are planting. It is time that we do more creative work and to share it with others. The world needs more art!

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

What Does It Mean To Think Strategically?

Many leaders have shared with me that they fear their organizations are drifting off course from their desired strategic pathway. They also are not sure exactly how to get their organization back on course. However, they believe that the only way to correct this problem is for themselves and their teams to think strategically and to make better strategic choices. 

I agree with this perspective and I believe the challenge is that thinking strategically is not an easy choice for many people in leadership positions because they are not sure how to think strategically. From many decades of working with a wide diversity of leaders and after doing an extensive amount of reading about leadership, I believe that thinking strategically involves three core skills sets. 

First, when a leader thinks strategically, they must have contextual intelligence and show a high degree of contextual vigilance. Like the concept of emotional intelligence, an individual with contextual intelligence is adept at understanding the trends that are happening within the big picture, i.e. their industry and society as a whole. Some people call this connecting the dots and understanding why things happen the way they happen. But the best people I’ve met who display contextual intelligence are vigilant and constantly monitoring large and small changes within the bigger picture. They focus on changes in the patterns and whether they will create any degree of risk for the company. This discipline has been famously summarized by Jim Collins and Morten Hansen in their book, Great By Choice, with the phrase “they zoom out before they zoom in.”

Second, when a leader thinks strategically, they must be able to understand and explain strategy. Many leaders think this is a no-brainer. Yet, when asked to explain what is the concept of strategy and why their company chooses the strategy they currently have, the answers I receive are often poor and very confusing. As a result, this becomes an important coachable moment. If we expect people to think strategically, then all involved must be competent in explaining the what and why of strategy. If not, then the only outcome will be more confusion and faster organizational drift.

Third, when a leader thinks strategically, they must be able to create a work environment that results in operational excellence, i.e. the capacity for the company to generate continuous improvements. When an organization is drifting in a sea of complexity, thinking strategically must translate into operational improvements. If the work environment is built upon a foundation of trust, respect and integrity and all involved can commit to decisions and the subsequent plans of action plus hold one another accountable for delivering on these plans, then the result with be the achievement of our collective results. However, if there is the absence of trust, a fear of conflict and a general lack of commitment to planned action, then the ability to think strategically will not translate into effective organizational change and ultimately be a waste of individual and group time and energy.

With the above three skill sets as a foundation for thinking strategically, I want to add three more actions that I have witnessed which have helped leaders think strategically. First, they listen strategically. On the surface, this may seem like I am stating the obvious. But after careful observation, this action is more than just keeping one’s ears open and receiving sound waves. Leaders who think strategically have the ability to suspend their own perception of what is happening and to focus on what is the other person’s mindset and philosophy about what they are doing, and why things are happening. Years ago, I read an article that referenced this concept by the following phrase, namely “opposable thumbs/opposable mind”. As the thumb is an opposable digit to the pointer finger and thus gives someone the ability to pick up an object, an effective leader is able to grasp another person’s perspective. This gives them the ability to understand what is happening at the individual and group levels and therefore be able to determine what is the best course of action.

Second, they frame things strategically. After they figure out what is causing what to happen within the work place or our larger society, i.e. an analysis of causality, and after they determine the correct decision architecture to deploy, these leaders are able to explain what decisions or actions need to take place in a clear and coherent manner. But the key to doing this is to place that action within the context of the larger picture and to do it in a manner that creates urgency but not a panic. The outcome of being able to frame things strategically is to paint a picture that business as usual is totally unacceptable if not dangerous and will produce serious strategic and operational problems during the coming years.

Third, they network strategically. As Herminia Ibarra explains so well in her book, Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader (Harvard Business Review Press, 2015), “When challenged to think beyond their functional speciality and to concern themselves with strategic issues to support the overall business, many managers do not immediately grasp that these are also relational - not just analytical-tasks…. Stepping up to leadership, therefore, means not only learning to do different things and to think differently about what needs to be done but also learning in different, more self-guided, peer-driven, and external ways.” When leaders choose to network strategically, they build connections with a diverse collection of people in order to gain greater perspective and understanding. This helps them prevent macro-myopia and spatial blindness, i.e. the inability to see the whole system or the movement of trends because they have become solely focused on a singular part of a system. By networking strategically, they are constantly building a greater degree of clarity about why things are happening and to translate this into a discipline of how things need to happen within the company so there is a consistency in results at the strategic and operational levels. 

Thinking strategically is a complicated action. It takes time, patience and personal humility to become good at it. With the right degree of support and coaching, individuals can get better. But the first step is to commit to working on it and not assuming it will happen just because one has achieved the title of leader or manager. As with the rest of life, a personal discipline to learn more and to seek out assistance along the way will make a big difference.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

How Do I Change Myself?

Over the last 90 days, more and more people have shared with me during executive coaching sessions that they are exhausted. They are tired mentally and they are tired emotionally from the roller coaster of 2020. And as a result, they are now physically exhausted, too. 

“I am way past my edges,” one person recently shared, “and it just keeps coming and coming. This is a year that I do not want to repeat again in my lifetime. I know I can not control so much that is happening. I also know that I need to change myself but how do you actually do this? How do you change yourself when you are this burned out?” The question is an excellent one and the answer is not simple or easy.

Upon reflection, I am reminded of an insight from many years ago that James Autry wrote in his book, Confessions of an Accidental Businessman: It Takes a Lifetime to Find Wisdom (Berrett-Koehler, 1996): “Burnout is not a matter of working too hard. It is a matter of finding no meaning in what we do: not a problem of mental/physical energy but a problem of emotional energy; not a crisis of time but a crisis of spirit.”

Given the current challenges before us at home, at work and within our communities, I believe more and more people have lost a sense of meaning in what they do and how they live. Life has just become an endless list of things to get done and continual adaptations to be made. Furthermore, most of these adaptations are being driven by factors, people or situations over which we have no influence, control or even the opportunity to have input. Instead, we just react and try to move forward the best we can.

A life of constant reactions and adaptations without any meaning to it all is a life of concerns, worries and exhaustion. We got to this point not by choice but doing our best within a continually challenging and difficult environment. And when we look at the future, we just see more of the same. Thus, we begin to give up hope. Without meaning, life is draining and painful.

Personally, I have lived in this space more than once in my life. It was very hard. I did not know where to go and I did not know how to change. I knew I needed to change but I did not have a clear sense of how to go about it.

This is where the words of my late mother come to mind. As she would often say to me, “let go, let God” and “count your blessings.” The former was a reminder that my faith needed to be the foundation of my life, not just my work and my list of things that needed to get done. When I put this at the heart of all I do, then I remember that I am supported unconditionally at all times and surround by love and grace through it all. The later of her common phrases reminds me to look at the big picture and refocus on what I do have rather than what I have lost.

This really became clear to me one morning recently when I listened to a young couple being interviewed after surviving Hurricane Sally when it blasted the southern coast of the United States. With their home totally destroyed and being surrounded by downed trees and broken power poles, the woman said, “We are fine. We have our two dogs, our health and each other. The rest can be cleaned up and rebuilt.”

I just stopped what I was doing in the kitchen when she made these remarks. Here was a person who just went through a horrible night and in the morning, she could still find her blessings in the midst of it. 

I walked to the kitchen window and watched the sunrise. Quietly, I started counting my blessings. We have our health. We have a good home. We have a family who we love most dearly. They are all healthy and safe this morning. We have good friends who we love and whom love us. The list was long. And when I was done, I felt more at ease.  The world had not changed but I had changed on the inside. I had rediscovered the meaning in my life and was grateful for this reconnection to it.

Changing oneself is not simple or easy. But it is possible when we put our faith at the center of all we do and routinely pause to count our blessings.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257

Embrace Complexity

The world right now is a messy and complex place. As I reflect on all that is happening around the globe, I keep thinking of the following written by Karen Mazen Miller:

“Things change; people struggle.

People struggle; things change.

It hurts when people struggle and when things change.

Accept that people struggle and things change.

The only way to deal with this is by changing yourself.”

Recognizing that the above is a modified version of the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, I find it helps me put everything back into perspective as I learn to embrace the messy ambiguity and complexity of life right now.

As leaders, we are acutely aware that things are changing and people are struggling. I think some days we get so busy that we forget the wise advice and counsel of Margaret Wheatley: “Life seeks organization, but it uses messes to get there. Organization is a process, not a structure.” 

Leaders like structure and systems. We thrive on our ability to reduce messy ambiguity and complexity. Yet, our greatest challenge is to embrace the complexity rather than to fight against it.

For many this fall, life feels like messy complexity has nearly shifted into total chaos. However, with the right support and perspective, some leaders are recognizing that complexity may feel chaotic, but in reality, it is really just a complex adaptive system or event that is taking place. 

When we encounter the rise of complex adaptive systems or events, we need to remember that the system or event involves large numbers of interacting elements. These interactions are often nonlinear, and that minor changes can produce disproportionately major consequences. In short, the system is dynamic. 

Therefore, solutions can’t be improved. Rather, they arise from the circumstances around complexity and ambiguity. This process happens when we, as leaders, grasp two concepts, namely self-organization and emergence.

Self-organization is “the tendency of certain (but not all) systems operating far from equilibrium to shift to a new state when their constituent elements generate unlikely combinations” writes Richard T. Pascale, Mark Millemann and Linda Gioja in their book, Surfing The Edge of Chaos: The Laws of Nature and the New Laws of Business, Three Rivers Press, 2000. As they continue, emergence is “the outcome from self-organization.” For example, “a jazz ensemble creates an emergent sound that no one could have imagined from listening to the individual instruments.” In simple terms, self-organization generates new routes in the landscape of complexity, and emergence generates new destinations.

From my perspective, the challenge of our time is to embrace complexity. We need to recognize that the challenges before us are a reflection of generational choices. The outcome of these choices is to call upon each of us to have the courage and fortitude to seek new routes and new destinations. 

And the first place to start this journey is by changing myself. Step by step, struggle by struggle, we can role model continual learning and personal integrity. It is the combination of the two that will transform the complex process into new ways of working and living in harmony with others.

Geery Howe, M.A. Consultant, Executive Coach, Trainer in Leadership, Strategic Planning and Organizational Change Morning Star Associates 319 - 643 - 2257