In that spirit, sometimes before I go to sleep, I write out what I have accomplished that day in my journal. On the days that I actually do something worth recording, it really does give me an energy boost and feelings of satisfaction. The problem with this is that once I write it down, I never go back and look at it. The benefits of knowing what I have done are lost.

The other problem is that I don’t really have a journal. I have a spiral bound notebook next to my bed that sometimes gets moved mysteriously to another part of the house where I can’t find it. (Notice how adroitly I denied responsibility for the notebook getting moved.)

So, I then get a new notebook and begin anew. This means there are now at least a dozen or so different notebooks in different parts of the house that have records of what I have done, want to do, or have done.

End result: Until two days ago, I didn’t have a consistent way of keeping track of my accomplishments.

Daily Diary – An Easy New Tool

Now here comes LifeHacker.com to the rescue with a recommendation for a handy PC-based tool.

The idea is to use Window’s default notepad to start a daily log that you can keep in the Windows Task Bar and access easily from your PC at any time.

Didn’t know that Windows had a notepad? I didn’t know it either. A notepad is a handy little program in your computer that you can open up and type text notes into. Click here for  instructions on how to find notepad on XP.

I’m sure there are equivalent instructions for Vista and Windows 7.

How to Create a Daily Diary

Once you have located and set up notepad, then follow LifeHacker.com’s instructions for the daily diary and you’re set. Briefly, here are the steps:

1. Open up notepad and type “.LOG” (without the quotes) at the top of the file. Be sure you use all caps.
2. Now save the daily log wherever you want it on your hard drive, giving it a name of your choosing. I saved it in my “records” folder where I keep all kinds of records and named mine “Dailylog”.
3. Now open it back up and you will find that Notepad has very considerately put a time and date stamp on it so you know when you created the entry. You have now created your daily log file.
4. I certainly didn’t want to go digging through multiple folders on my computer to find my Dailylog, so LifeHacker tells us how to put create a shortcut to the file and then put it in the taskbar. (The taskbar holds that bunch of icons at the bottom right of the computer.)  I prefer to use the Quick Launch bar which contains that string of icons across the bottom so that’s where I decided to put my shortcut file. Here’s what he said to do:
   • Right-click the file and select properties.
   • Select the Shortcut menu.
   • From within that menu, select “change icon”.
   • Choose an icon that you prefer. I selected a bright red icon that would really stand out.
   • Click OK and you’re done.
   • I then selected the shortcut icon and dragged it down to the Quick Launch bar.

That’s it. LifeHacker has other tricks on how to use the daily log, so I suggest you check it out.

I created it. What next?

I have played with my brand-new DailyLog a couple of times and am now settling into how I will actually use it. A bonus I have already discovered is that it helps me keep track of where my time goes. As you probably well know, keeping track of your hours is one way to find those time wasters so that you may reduce your stress at work.

Now that I have created and started using the daily log, the question is whether I will keep it up. I’ll let you know in future posts.

Revered by many throughout Houston, Maconda B. O’Connor was born on May 4, 1930 and passed from this life on May 19, 2012.

The Houston Chronicle and others have listed her long list of achievements.  She received over two dozen awards and honorary degrees, served on Houston’s and the nation’s most prestigious boards, and founded or helped start innovative programs dedicated to helping people improve their lives. As Angela Blanchard, president and CEO of Neighborhood Centers Inc., was quoted as saying, “There isn’t a place to go to in this city where you can get help that she didn’t help nurture.”

A colleague introduced us while Maconda was completing her doctoral studies at Smith College. She was looking for a research project for a required internship, and the colleague suggested my grant from the National Science Foundation might meet the requirements. Maconda was immediately interested in my project and, over time, in my work. She provided or helped arrange financial support for my research every year since.

Saying she supported my work, though, doesn’t quite get what she meant to me. We became friends. I loved her – still love her — dearly. We shared a similar fire for helping others improve their lives, and for setting up systems and organizations that would foster people’s growth and development. I see the world differently because of her, approach my own work differently because of her, have a deeper commitment to what I do because of her.

For me and many others, she has been an inspiration and a model of personal achievement and success. Following are some of what we can all learn from her:

 

It’s never too late to follow your path.

Married at age 19, Maconda finished her associate arts degree a year later, raised four children as a stay-at-home mom, and, after the children left home, decided to follow her own path of self-development. In her early 50s, she returned to school and completed her bachelor’s degree. Three years later, she received a Masters in Social Work from Smith College, and 13 years later, at the age of 68, she received a PhD in social work.

How could she embark on such a new endeavor after her children grew up? Fortunately for the rest of us, she knew she had many more gifts to give.

Seek out challenging new experiences

Maconda had a zest for life and adventure. She became an American Leadership Forum Fellow at age 64, participating in its year-long personal development curriculum. The height of the program was a grueling climb to the top of a mountain in the northwest.  “Did you really make it to the top of the mountain?” I once asked her. Her eyes lit up as she nodded.

A few months ago, she was talking with two friends about their bucket list. One said he wanted to go sky-diving. And so, the three of them signed up to go tandem sky-diving together.  The youngest of the three was 73, Maconda was 81. I was among those who went to cheer her on. The joyful expression on her face as she landed on the ground was priceless. Someone asked her had she been afraid. She said no and she would do it again. Later, her personal assistant Gretchen Walter quoted her as saying before the jump, “It will only be a mistake if I don’t come back.”

Give back

Maconda often talked about her father’s commitment to philanthropy. Giving back to the community in which they lived was a solemn responsibility that he instilled in his children.

Giving back meant more than financial support. Maconda gave extensively of her time, talents, and finely honed skills as both a clinical therapist and policy advocate.

During the first few years I knew her, she was dedicated to developing the Burnett-Bayland Home as a model detention center for boys within the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department. She worked hand-in-hand with Linda Crocker, then Superintendent of the facility, to develop it from a warehouse for children to a nourishing, nurturing environment where children could grow.

Together they designed and Maconda funded more than 50 programs in that facility, including drug and alcohol counseling, therapy, peer mediation, and photography and art shops. If a kid needed money for clothes or books or tutoring, he got it. Youth with special promise received tuition and expenses for college.

Maconda also provided direct clinical services to the youth at BBH and other facilities. As Gretchen Walter put it, “When BBH has a kid that no one can handle, the phone will ring.” Imagine her, a wealthy older White woman, with a unique ability to turn around delinquent street-wise, impoverished Black and Latino boys by listening, caring, and astute, guided questioning so that they could clearly see the consequences of their choices. How did she bridge all those differences?

Embrace differences, don’t minimize or ignore them

Maconda grew up in two worlds. She was born into one of Houston’s wealthiest families and was heavily influenced by her family. As a young child, though, she would hang around the kitchen and listen to the conversations of the household staff, where she learned about their joys and tribulations.

Traveling between the kitchen and the parlor, Maconda had the unusual opportunity to see and feel the different realities that the people in these two worlds experienced. A passage in one of my favorite books, The Little Prince, states, “it’s only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” Maconda learned to see rightly with her heart.

I don’t mean she didn’t see color. Maconda did indeed note people’s age, color, social class, and other differences. But she saw these characteristics as the exterior housing in which a human being lived – like the shell of the clam. A shell may be beautiful in its own right, but what she paid the most attention to was the pearl – the person — inside.

This showed up particularly in her work at BBH with the youth detained there. One year, I asked Maconda to speak to one of my graduate classes. In explaining her interest and connection with youth, she told the students, “Adolescents are in living color while the rest of the world is in shades of grey.” She delighted in the newness and discovery of youth.

Emphasize changing systems, not just individuals

Maconda understood the power of systems change, and with the backing of her family’s prestigious Brown Foundation, she helped launch programs and initiatives she believed in. Barnett-Bayland Homes was only one these. Three other notable initiatives are the Houston A+ Challenge, the Collaborative for Children, and Children at Risk, highly innovative programs dedicated to improving the quality of education and children’s services in the Houston community. She supported many more programs, including the student scholarship fund at my academic affiliation — University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work.

Her doctoral dissertation research provides a unique illustration of her commitment to systems change. She used her research to develop an innovative diagnostic tool for clinicians to determine how well troubled youth could manage their own emotions rather than resort to violence. To quote her in a paper summarizing her research, “Are they more likely to throw a tantrum reminiscent of a two-year-old, or can they walk away from a bothersome protagonist?” The proper diagnosis would increase the effectiveness of the treatment plan because it would properly target the youth’s emotional needs.

What did she draw on to develop this tool? To quote her again, “The research presented here is rooted in 15 years of work with adolescents in the proverbial trenches of a county juvenile probation department, and four years on the Texas Protective Regulatory Services Board.”

In other words, her dissertation brought together the breadth of her span from philanthropist to clinician to program designer to policy advocate to researcher. For her, it was not enough to work directly with potentially violent youth. She was also concerned about providing the proper tools and resources to those who were responsible for the youth’s care and development and doing the research to make sure the tools worked.

Give for its own sake

Maconda’s humility was legendary. A decade or so ago at an American Leadership Forum dinner in her honor, her friend, Andrea White, said, “Maconda leads because she’s passionate about children. She doesn’t make a big noisy show of a new project. She just starts doing what she thinks is right and after a while people notice and join her.”

As a philanthropist, she frequently made anonymous donations. She gave to causes and people she believed in and that was enough.

She has left an indelible mark on the Houston community and those who knew her and loved her. I will cherish her memory forever.

References:

• O’Connor, M. B. (1995). No. 1 goal is protecting kids: 2 STAR Edition. Houston Chronicle (pre-1997 Fulltext), p. 17.
• O’Connor, M. B. (1998). Developmental status of affect management in adjudicated adolescent males. Smith College School for Social Work, Northampton, Massachusetts.
• O’Connor, M. B. (2001). An assessment tool for evaluating affect development and functioning among adjudicated adolescent boys in residential treatment. Smith College Studies in Social Work, 71(2), 329-345.
• Latting, J. K., & Ramsey, V. J. (2009). Reframing change:  How to deal with workplace dynamics, influence others, and bring people together to initiate positive change. Westport CT: Praeger Publishers. (See especially the following sections: pp. 166n — “Emphasize changing situational factors, not just individuals”; pp., 104n – The Color-blind, perspective.)

While millions of us are cheering, I imagine millions of others are dismayed, believing that their cherished values have been dealt a huge blow.

I was a child when Harry Belafonte (African American) and Joan Fontaine (Caucasian) were the lead actors in the movie Island in the Sun. The film was hugely controversial and they were not allowed to kiss, because an interracial couple kissing would have violated many people’s cherished values about keeping the races separate. Miscegenation (“race-mixing”) was against the law in my state.

So while I recognize some people’s dismay at the President’s stand, my memory of what it feels like to be viewed as less than a full citizen is still too vivid for me to do more than acknowledge that this may feel like a setback to them. For me, though, this is an important victory in the march toward equal rights for all in this country.

Others have noted the similarly between the history of civil rights for Blacks in this country with the unfolding history of civil rights for gays. A stirring presentation about this was made by Dr. William J. Barber, Pastor of the Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro North Carolina, the evening before the popular vote yesterday on whether to ban same sex marriages in that state.

He rightfully noted the dangers of putting the 14^th amendment regarding equal protection under the law to popular vote. As he explained, today’s Fair Housing laws (for example) probably wouldn’t survive a popular vote today. So, again and again, he asked, do we want to put up people’s rights to a popular vote? Click here to view the video.

A few years ago, an older White couple sat at dinner with my husband and me and basically apologized for the segregationist views that they had held for decades. “We just didn’t know,” they explained. We nodded sympathetically as they talked, and replied that we did understand that that was the way it was then. Yet here we were all now, having dinner together.

Yesterday, North Carolina passed the state ban on same sex marriages, making it the 30th state to done so. Despite that setback, I still agree with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who said “the arc of history is long but it bends toward justice.”

Maybe 30 years from now, some heterosexual couple who today is fervently against marriage equality will sit down to dinner with a gay couple, apologize for their stance of today, and tell them, “We just didn’t know.”

This is my prediction and my hope.

In the previous post on the Skill of Speaking Up, a Responsible Conflict Resolution Technique, I described a case in which Yolanda, a new Latina staff member, made a suggestion at a staff meeting on how to increase their sales. She noted that she liked to spend time in small talk and relationship building before launching into the sales pitch. Jim, her White male colleague, dismissed her statement by responding, “I disagree completely. People want you to get to the point and not waste their time. All that small talk and personal stuff is so Hispanic.”

Josh, a coworker, spoke up responsibly using the three guidelines provided in the post. Not surprisingly, Jim took offense and countered to Josh, “Are you implying I’m racist?”

Jim graciously accepted Josh’s implicit disclaimer that he meant no harm, albeit acknowledging that he felt confused about what had happened. They all then went back to the meeting agenda.

That was the gist of the post. To read the full post, click here.

What happens after you speak up responsibly?

In the comments section to the post, Carole Marmell, a friend and reader, posed this thoughtful comment:

I basically agree with Carole.  More is needed. This is why I decided to address the aftermath to speaking up responsibly here in this separate post.  There are two principles here that serve as my guidelines for what to do after speaking up:

1. Celebrate small wins
2. Trust the process [to produce another teachable moment]

Celebrate small wins

The first is to celebrate any small wins. I love this concept. Jean Ramsey and I talk about it extensively in Chapter 7 of Reframing Change. The idea is that change doesn’t happen all at once. It occurs step-by-step, sometimes tiny-step-by-tiny-step.

Josh has done a wonderful deed for the staff and Yolanda. He let the staff know that offensive comments won’t go unchallenged, thereby setting a norm for the group that may not have been there before. He also let Yolanda know that she was not alone. Someone would stand with her if she were unfairly singled out.

Those are two small wins on the long path toward establishing an inclusive, respectful workplace. They should be heralded as such and if I had been Josh’s colleague, I would have let him know I appreciated his intervention.

But Carole is asking, does it end there?  Does Jim know what he did wrong? Is there a major issue that needs to be addressed at some point and if so how?

Trust the process [to produce another  teachable moment]

This leads to the next principle:  Trust the process. As long as we stay focused on the long-term goal — in this case, an inclusive workplace — then things will evolve to create opportunities for the issue to be brought to the forefront again and again. Each new time is another opportunity to speak up responsibly and produce yet another small win.

Josh doesn’t have to settle the issue once and for all in this one meeting.  In the first place, he can’t. Attitudinal change doesn’t occur in one sitting. If offensive comments are the norm in the organization, they will occur again.

Now stopping the meeting to process the issue is possible in some work cultures.  However, judging from Jim’s quick defense, I wouldn’t guess that’s the case in this particular work group. Trusting the process is a longer term strategy.

Josh can trust the process enough to know that offensive comments will keep showing up as long as they are part of the culture, providing him and others with fresh new material to speak up about. So, Josh (and others in his workgroup who want a more respectful, inclusive work environment) can just wait for the more teachable moments to show up and then speak up responsibly each and every time.  If they are diligent about this, eventually, a new norm will evolve: in this company, we treat one another with respect.

What if I want change now?

Promoting change through small wins, trusting the process, and pouncing on each teachable moment requires patience. If we want change now, then it’s really hard to be disciplined about this.

And, of course, if you really think you cannot wait for the process to evolve, then you will want to get more proactive about it. You may ask the manager to have a meeting to discuss it, or you can ask for a leadership or diversity consultant to be brought in to facilitate addressing the issue (Yes, we at Leading Consciously would be happy to discuss how we might approach your particular work situation.)

It’s up to all of us

Yesterday, I attended a luncheon where awards were given by the Anti-Defamation League-Southwest “to educators for their outstanding efforts to create an atmosphere in their schools that rejects prejudice and promotes respect for and understanding of diversity in their classrooms and on their campuses.”

Students from a Houston area school put on a skit about a young girl who had been targeted for bullying by a classmate while the other classmates silently stood by, lamenting that they should have spoken up but didn’t. The message was clear: it’s up to all of us to stop bullying and exclusion.

Whether you get external support or go it alone, you can still act on the guidelines for speaking up responsibly in the moment when you witness someone being unfairly targeted. Afterwards, you can decide to either take further action or to trust the process, continue acting on teachable moments, and celebrate any small wins along the way.

Reference:  Reframing Change:  How to deal with workplace dynamics, influence others, and bring people together to initiate positive change

Questions:

1. What do you think about the principle of small wins? of trusting the opposition to create the teachable moment?

2. What about you?  How do you approach bringing about culture change in situations where you are not overtly in charge?

• Stay silent (after all, you are not involved)
• Stay silent in the moment and talk to the offender privately later (this is consistent with the adage, “praise in public, criticize privately”)
• Tell the offender in front of everyone that he’s completely out of line and explain why he is wrong
• Change the topic so that the meeting can move on to more safe topics

If none of these options sounds satisfactory, then you’re right, there are other alternatives. We call it Speaking Up Responsibly.

Case example:  A staff meeting

Imagine a staff meeting in a sales organization.  Suzanne, the manager, is a White female. She is sitting at the head of the table surrounded by six of her direct reports.  One of them is Jim, a White male.  A second is Josh, also a White male. A third is Yolanda, a Latina who recently joined the staff. They are partly through the meeting agenda and Suzanne is about to introduce the next topic.

Suzanne: We’re now at the Training Tips part of our agenda. Our numbers are down this month even though the economy seems to be getting better. I’m eager to hear everyone’s best tips for what’s working for them this quarter. Let’s see how many ideas we can get on the table in the next 15 minutes.

Different people share their ideas for the next 10 minutes. Then, Yolanda offers her suggestion.

Yolanda: When meeting a new prospect, I have always found it helpful to put the focus on the prospect first, not on our product. I open with small talk and look around their office to find clues to ask about. If I see pictures of their family or an indication of a hobby, I always start there

Jim: I disagree completely. People want you to get to the point and not waste their time. All that small talk and personal stuff is so Hispanic.

Yolanda’s face looks stricken, as though she has been slapped. Josh sits there stunned. Did he really just hear Jim insult their new Latina coworker by telling her that her suggestion was “so Hispanic”???  He glances at Suzanne, the manager. She is looking down at her papers, seemingly oblivious as to what had just happened

How might Josh respond?

If he stays silent, he becomes collusive with Jim in insulting Yolanda. She has no way of knowing that she has his silent support. If no one else speaks up for her, she may end up feeling alienated because of her ethnicity.

If he stays silent at the meeting and then talks to Jim privately, he might help save Jim from public embarrassment, while allowing Yolanda’s hurt feelings to possibly ruin her further participation in the group.

If Josh tells Jim that he’s out of line, Yolanda would feel supported, but Jim could easily feel just as insulted and alienated as Yolanda. Jim may not have intended to be personally insulting to Yolanda and simply not realized that he was implying that there was something wrong with being Hispanic. The meeting would likely grow tense and possibly even unproductive.

If Josh changes the subject, he would implicitly signal that something inappropriate (to say the least) has happened, but Yolanda would still not know of his silent support.

The Skill of Speaking Up Responsibly

Josh is in a situation that calls for difficult feedback and conflict resolution. Fortunately, though, he can use the skill of Speaking Up Responsibly in the moment to reveal the elephant in the room, provide reassurance to Yolanda that she doesn’t have to endure insults in their team, and provide Jim with an opportunity to try and make amends should he choose. Speaking up may also pave the way for a new norm in the group that these type of insults are unacceptable.

The goals in speaking up responsibly are to

• stop an oppressive behavior,
• avoid confusing intent with impact, and
• model the respectful behavior you wish the other person had enacted

Before describing a possible response by Josh, let’s first review the steps in Speaking Up Responsibly in the text box below:

Now let’s replay Yolanda and Jim’s comment and hear a possible response by Josh:

Yolanda: When meeting a new prospect, I have always found it helpful to put the focus on the prospect first, not on our product. I open with small talk and look around their office to find clues to ask about. If I see pictures of their family or an indication of a hobby, I always start there.

Jim: I disagree completely. People want you to get to the point and not waste their time. All that small talk and personal stuff is so Hispanic.

Josh: I am really uncomfortable with what is happening now. It doesn’t feel right at all. I’m not sure how to address this here, but I don’t think we can just keep talking as though it didn’t happen.

[Silence in the room]

Notice that Josh avoided blame and that while Jim could argue about his intention, he could not deny Josh’s discomfort.

At this point either others will join in and say something, or Jim himself might realize that he has put his foot in his mouth and do what he can to correct himself. If Jim does say something to make amends, Josh could respond with something like this:

Josh: It seems to me that you hadn’t set out to insult anyone. All of us have said things we later regretted.

With that statement, he separates Jim’s intent from the impact on Yolanda and himself.  He also transforms the original insult into a learning opportunity.

Suppose Jim gets defensive?

But suppose Jim moves into an aggressively defensive response:

Jim: What do you mean? What she said really was like a Latino. We learned in our cross-cultural classes that Hispanics tend toward a more personal approach to sales. Are you implying I’m racist?

Now this is tricky. Jim is trying to convert his insult into a statement of fact. How might Josh respond so that Jim feels less threatened yet Yolanda and the rest of the team don’t think that Jim’s comment is acceptable.

Josh: Yes, you are correct. The way I heard your statement caused me to feel uncomfortable. If you are saying you were just talking about cultural differences and have no intention of insulting or hurting anyone, that’s great. I am still rather confused, but I do feel much better.

Is Josh letting Jim off the hook? Well, yes, but so what? The point was not to punish Jim but to establish that in their meetings, people aren’t allowed to throw barbs, particularly ethnic barbs, at one another. With Jim’s “clarification” of his intention, the goal is accomplished. Josh is also separating intent from impact. The impact on him and (obviously) Yolanda was that the comment was hurtful. If Jim is now claiming there was no harmful intent, Josh can let it go.

Is Josh lying when he says he feels much better?  Actually Josh probably does feel better, because he acted on his principles, Yolanda has received support, and others in the meeting know that offensive remarks have consequences.  Josh is also continuing to acknowledge his own ambivalent feelings (“I am still rather confused”), but he has no need to rub Jim’s face in it.

With Josh’s last statement, the conflict has been more or less resolved for now and Suzanne, the manager, may continue on with the agenda.

The next post will consider the ethnic/racial dynamics in the case example.

Questions:

1. What do you think about how Josh handled it?
2. How would you improve on what Josh said?
3. Do you think that the race/ethnicity of  Jim, Yolanda, and Josh had any effect on how their comments were interpreted by the others?

References:

Latting, J. K., & Ramsey, V. J. (2009). Reframing change:  How to deal with workplace dynamics, influence others, and bring people together to initiate positive change. Westport CT: Praeger Publishers.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Tabitha Mcardle for providing the case in this post.

At the end of last semester, I became swamped. Grading student papers took a full week. My students’ papers were so excellent, my initial plans to just dash through them fell by the wayside as I read their heartfelt summaries of what they had gained during the semester.  The good news is that they inspired me tremendously. During the week or so that I read through their papers, I saw clearly why this work is important, why I do what I do, and how it can foster personal achievement and success.

After grading was finished, I planned a hiatus during the Christmas holidays. I even had the audacity of imagining myself staying in bed all day reading whatever I wanted and getting clear on my goals for 2012.

But…as John Lennon said, “Life is what happens when you are making other plans.”  Life for me came in the form of computer and cell phone breakdowns, family and personal illnesses and upsets, and my own thwarted determination to dejunk piles of papers that had more nostalgic benefit than current utility.

How did I handle it?

For the most part, I just kept putting one foot in front of the other to keep going (with an occasional time-out for a pity party, allowing myself to feel just plain miserable). Fortunately, I no longer go into the “Why me?” frame of mind.  I know why me. It’s because bad things happen to all of us. Nothing goes smoothly and perfectly. Change is not linear.  It occurs in fits and starts, dips and rebounds. We learn and grow through adversity.  And while I don’t like to think that anyone suffers to learn a lesson, I do believe that adversity creates an opportunity for us to grow, if we are willing.

We define “Leading Consciously” as “the ability to examine yourself, become conscious of your automatic habits, patterns, and beliefs, and to choose new behaviors as a result of the expanded awareness.”  In other words, instead of doing what you have always done, deliberately step out of autopilot into conscious assessment of what assumptions, emotions, and behaviors  got you to where you are and what new assumptions, emotions, and behaviors it will take to get you where you would like to go.

At one point, I had been stuck in my autopilot pity party for about a week.  Finally, I reflected on what it means to lead consciously and decided to make the shift. 

With the pity party behind me and the future bright in front of me, here’s what I learned in hindsight:

• I can either ruminate over how wrong everything has turned out or I can deliberately force myself to still my mind, meditate, and then ask for guidance. If I do the latter, I always get redirected toward a possible solution. The challenge is to make the conscious decision to not just wallow in repetitive rehashing of what went wrong.  Instead, go into stillness and then listen for guidance.

• Love is plentiful and all around us.  All we have to do is to allow ourselves to experience it and to let in the vulnerability of it. Brene Brown, a colleague, talks about “the power of vulnerability.” How right she is!  There is great power in allowing ourselves (myself) to feel vulnerable and to reach out to others for help.

• Even if I slow down, the world doesn’t stop. Things that are most important to me are not lost forever. I may not get things done as fast as I would have liked or in the way I would have liked. I may even be redirected toward a new possibility. Yet what emerges often turns out to be better than what I had originally planned.  And, no matter what, there is *always* so much to be grateful for.

For me, the new year has finally begun.

Jean

Timmy’s story: Is it better to be right or to be helpful?

This is the story of Timmy, a highly talented university graduate. After spending 4 years completing a university degree in Computer Science at a well-recognized school and over a year working on internal projects within his firm, Timmy was sent off as a consultant to help an organization in need.

Timmy quickly realized that he was more knowledgeable, more competent, more skilled, and harder working than most software developers on his new team. Whenever an issue would come up, Timmy knew the answer much before everyone else.

After a few days, Timmy realized the sad state of affairs within his client’s software development organization and in trying to help his new colleagues, he started dispensing recommendations as if they were candies on Halloween night.

Every time Timmy noticed something that wasn’t done properly or as per the theory he had mastered, he would immediately point it out. Every time a colleague would run into an issue, Timmy would quickly point out the source of the issue and the solution to fix it. Every time Timmy noticed a team-mate slack off, he would tell others on the team. Timmy knew he was right – pretty much all the time.

Needless to say, Timmy was not well liked by his team mates. On the other hand, Timmy didn’t like his consulting mandate either and within a few days, Timmy asked his firm to pull him off the mandate.

Despite Timmy’s capabilities and the obvious need of his new team, the conflicts between him and his colleagues grew quickly every day. After a few weeks Timmy had enough. He couldn’t understand why nobody saw that he was right, that he had the answer to all their questions, and that they wouldn’t have any problem if only they would listen to him.

Feeling so frustrated by the situation, Timmy showed up at his firm’s office one morning asking for help. “Can someone tell me what is going on?” he cried out.

A senior consultant who immediately saw the distress on Timmy’s face, gladly offered to help. He explained to Timmy that although he was a competent technical resource, Timmy failed to realize a few key elements of consulting:

• Timmy hadn’t made sure to clarify the reason he was hired. Clarifying the expectations was necessary to avoid possible confusion around the role he was to play;
• Nobody likes to feel they are inferior to others – especially not to consultants. If Timmy wanted his suggestions to be accepted, he would need to use a softer approach, some humility, and a lot of patience;
• People do not accept suggestions – let alone recommendations – from others unless they have established their credibility;
• Team mates are not likely to accept input unless they actually ask for it;
• Timmy needs to ask himself if he believes it is better for him and for his client to be right.

Do you know anyone who is like Timmy?

Orignally posted by Martin Proux on 12/15/2009 at http://analytical-mind.com//?s=better+to+be+right+or+helpful with permission.

Martin Proux is President of Pyxis, a software development consulting and coaching firm located in Canada.  The firm “helps software development companies to become places where results, quality of life, and fun coexist sustainably by being first and foremost an example of what it proposes to its clients and by coaching them.”  Pyxis is one of the few organizations that I have heard about that successfully use self-managing rather than hierarchically organized teams to get their work done.

Put Your Big Rocks in First

A while ago, I wrote a post about how Sherra Aquirre, a friend of mine, prioritizes her tasks. She’s head of Aztec Services, Inc., an industry leader in facility services, and as you might guess, has a lot on her plate. We were talking about how we organized our work and Sherra said one of her tactics is to rely on Steven Covey’s principle of “Put the big rocks in first.”

The idea is this: if you fill a jar with the big rocks first, you will still have room for the small rocks because they settle into the crevices between the big rocks.  Reverse the process and the small rocks may fill up the bottom of the jar, leaving little room for all of the remaining big rocks. For a video illustrating the principle, click here.

In reminding me of this principle, Sherra explained that for her, the big rocks are the hardest tasks.  Prior to talking with Sherra, I had thought of “hard tasks” as the most important tasks, not the most difficult.  As she talked, however, I realized that she was right – for me the big rocks were the things I dreaded doing.

The very next day, I woke up and started with my most difficult task. I was amazed with how good I felt once it was done and with how much energy that relief gave me for my other tasks that day.  For a few weeks afterward, I began my day doing my most dreaded tasks with excellent results.

Over time, though, the novelty eroded. So, here I am back in my old habit of beginning my day with what is most immediate and easy to do while letting the big rocks—my dreaded tasks–build up.

Getting Rid of Old Habits Isn’t Easy

This is predictable. Old habits are hard to break and under stress, we tend to revert to the familiar, no matter how ineffective. Researchers have estimated that it can take from 3 months to 2 years to retrain the brain to adopt a new habit, depending on how entrenched the old habit is.

Small wonder that under the press of classes on top of my regular work, I have let the “big rocks first” strategy fade away.   As Dee Hock, founder and former CEO of Visa International, put it: “The problem is never how to get new, innovative thoughts into your mind, but how to get the old ones out.”

Law of Success to the Rescue

Unexpectedly, a door has been opened by Napoleon Hill, author of the longtime best-selling book Think and Grow Rich. I am reading Hill’s extensive treatise, The Law of Success, which he wrote in 1929 prior to Think and Grow Rich after interviewing 500 highly successful people of his time.  A basic principle of the book is that our lives reflect what we have attracted into it.

Skeptics who decry “the law of attraction” as hocus-pocus don’t realize just how well-supported are its principles by behavioral science today.  Napoleon Hill’s interpretation of the Law of the Attraction is not think positive thoughts and things will magically appear in your life. Rather, to make the law of attraction work for you, you have to work for it. I have written about this in previous posts, beginning with “The Secret as a Voluntary Behavioral Modification Technique.”

So what does Napoleon Hill recommend to those of us with more work to do than we believe we have time to do it in?

First he explains that we must become really clear about our “definite chief aim” – what is it that we really want to do.  My definite chief aim has remained unchanged for the last two years.  Since the publication of Reframing Change, my major goals have been to share the concepts of Leading Consciously as widely as possible and to innovate in this work. Organizational clients and students have reported amazing successes to me through applying the Leading Consciously skillsets. Their stories are heartwarming and keep me motivated and committed to doing more and better.

According to Hill, once we know our definite chief aim, the next step is to go into action to bring the definite chief aim into reality.  Hill’s law of attraction, then, requires that we go beyond “I wish” thinking.  Rather, our dreams are only dreams until we bring to them to fruition through action.

So far so good.  I am up to Lesson 13 on Cooperation in the Law of Success, so I knew that Hill was a fervent advocate of taking action on our dreams to achieve success.  Then, last night, I read a passage that made time momentarily stand still:

To understand how to become active requires understanding of how not to procrastinate.

These suggestions will give you the necessary instructions:

First: Form the habit of doing each day the most distasteful tasks first. This procedure will be difficult at first, but after you have formed the habit you will take pride in pitching into the hardest and most undesirable part of your work first.

Second: Place this sign in front of you where you can see it in your daily work, and put a copy in your bedroom, where it will greet you as you retire and when you arise: “Do not tell them what you can do; show them!”

Third: Repeat the following words, aloud, twelve times each night just before you go to sleep: “Tomorrow I will do everything that should be done, when it should be done, and as it should be done. I will perform the most difficult tasks first because this will destroy the habit of procrastination and develop the habit of action in its place.”

Fourth: Carry out these instructions with faith in their soundness and with belief that they will develop action, in body and in mind, sufficient to enable you to realize your definite chief aim.

– Napoleon Hill, Law of Success, 1929, Excerpt from Lesson 13

I read and re-read that passage several times, amazed at that Hill had predated Covey in recognizing the benefits of putting in the hard rocks first.

Hill, however, was adding a deeply insightful aspect that had not occurred to me before.  Doing the easiest tasks first is really a form of procrastination.  Every time I do the easy thing first, I am postponing doing the harder task.  I may congratulate myself for getting things done, but I am also reinforcing procrastination — avoiding those difficult tasks that will bring me closer to my definite chief aim.  In short, doing the easiest task first can be a form of self-deception, an illusion of productivity, if the easiest tasks fill up the jar and there’s no room left by the end of the day for the hard rocks.

This morning I woke up committed to doing the hardest tasks first.  And I did them. Now that I know that I am breaking a habit of procrastination as well as moving closer to my definite chief aim, I’m even more motivated to make this principle work for me.  Behavioral science tells me that it may take at least three months for doing difficult tasks first to become a habit and that I may relapse several times along the way.  I don’t plan to let that deter me.  I’ll keep you posted.

Questions:

1. Do you do your easiest or hardest tasks first?

2. Which principles for achievement and success have worked well for you?

Reference: Covey, S. R. (1989). The seven habits of highly effective people. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Hill describes two important periods that people who wish to be successful must go through. The first is learning and organizing knowledge about our field of work. This in itself requires tremendous effort.

The second is the period in which we must convince others that we can do the work. During this second period especially, Hill advises that every time we give our services, we gain another opportunity to prove to others what we can do. This is where the habit of doing more than is paid for becomes especially useful. As Hill explains:

“Instead of saying to the world, ‘Show me the color of your money and I will show you what I can do, reverse the rule and say, ‘Let me show you the color of my service so that I may take a look at the color of your money if you like my service’” (p.695).

Once we do more than is paid for, what Hill calls the Law of Increasing Returns kicks in to deliver our benefit.

Won’t People Take Advantage of You If You Do More than Is Paid for?

In my early years as an assistant professor at the University of Houston, I began doing some subcontract work as an evaluation researcher. One day, a colleague called me up and said that a health organization had put out a Request For Proposal (RFP) to evaluate their services. This RFP, though, had an interesting twist. It was actually two RFPs.

The first asked for proposers to develop guidelines on what the evaluation should entail. Once they had the guidelines, the organization planned to issue a second much larger RFP for evaluators to submit bids to do the actual work. My colleague suggested that I apply for the planning RFP and then subcontract part of the work to his firm. Then, he would apply for the actual evaluation and include me as a subcontractor. (This was all above board.)

I agreed and he submitted my name as an applicant for the planning RFP. Shortly afterwards, I was asked to make a presentation before the committee that would select the contractor.

I had only a day or so to prepare. By 9 pm the night before, I knew how I wanted to approach my presentation to show the committee how I would structure the evaluation to give them the results they were seeking. There was one potential show-stopper. I worried that if I told them all my ideas, they might just take and use them without giving me that initial planning contract.

That night, I paced the floor, wondering what to do. Should I give my ideas freely or give them just enough so that they would know that I knew what I was doing.

Finally, I decided that it was an integrity question for me. Either I was in integrity with my work or I was not. Then as now, I believed in doing my best. I had information that I thought would be useful to them. I didn’t like imagining how I would feel if I walked into that presentation acting cagey, hinting at things that I wouldn’t explain.

I put aside my qualms and prepared a four page outline, focusing on providing this worthy organization with the best approach I could think of.

The next morning, I talked through my outline with the 20 or so people in the room. It was my first solo presentation as an expert evaluator.

Then someone asked, “Would you tell us who you are?” I was startled – I hadn’t even thought to bring a resume!!! So I quickly summarized my background and experience in evaluation research.

Around 7 pm that evening, I received a phone call from the person who headed the committee. “We really liked your presentation,” he said. “After you left, we talked it over and agreed that your outline was so right on target that we don’t need the second RFP to develop an evaluation plan. We like your approach and want to offer you *both* contracts – the planning contract and the full evaluation contract.”

 Both contracts? Did I hear right?

“We’re going to combine the two RFPs together,” he continued, “and would like for you to conduct the full evaluation using the approach that you explained to us. Are you willing?”

Was I ever! I called my colleague immediately afterward who laughed in joy with me. We would work together on the contract.

A Modern Look at the Law of Increasing Returns

Napoleon Hill would say that what happened to me was the Law of Increasing Returns in action. I was in the early years of my academic career, hoping to establish that I was capable of doing the work. I gave more than I thought might be paid for and the Law of Increasing Returns sent back my reward – this new opportunity.

Robert Cialdini, Professor of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State and an expert on persuasion, would possibly agree, although he would explain what happened in behavioral science terms. According to Cialdini’s theory, I benefitted from the principle of reciprocity– the tendency of people who want to give back to those who give to them. If we do more than paid for, we are likely to reap the benefits as people seek to give back to us to even the score.

Cialdini suggested that a gift especially memorable if it is meaningful, tailored to the person, and unexpected. My “gift” to that committee amply met these criteria: It wastailored to the organization. It was meaningful to them because it explained how the evaluation might proceed. And, it was completely unexpected. They thought they needed a planning RFP before they could conduct the evaluation and I showed up with the plan they had been seeking.

Since then, every time I am tempted to withhold my best, I remember this moment. As Napoleon Hill would phrase the lesson: When I give freely of what I have to offer, the Law of Increasing Returns sends back to me what I have given and much more.

Questions:

1. When are you likely to give your best?
2. When do you withhold it?
3. Have you noticed rewards or penalties from withholding or giving?

References:

1. For an excellent summary of the principle of reciprocity, click here
2. Cialdini, R. B. (2009). Influence: science and practice (5th ed.). Boston: Pearson Education.
3. Hill, N. (1928). The law of success, in sixteen lessons, teaching, for the first time in the history of the world, the true philosophy upon which all personal success is built. Meriden, Conn.: The Ralston university press.

His death saddened me tremendously, even though I suspected it was eminent. As one of the millions in mourning because of his transition, I was drawn to a recent article entitled, “Why Is Everyone So Upset by Steve Jobs’ Death?”

When Michael Jackson transitioned, many people asked the same thing.  “He was only a singer and a dancer,” some said. “What is all the uproar about?”  I can only surmise that those who asked that question were not familiar with Michael’s music or his message of “heal the world” that still resonate with millions of people around the globe.

So here we go again. A popular icon passes on, millions go in mourning, and a commentator is now asking why is everyone so upset.

The commentator, Constantine Von Hoffman, offers his own conclusion:

“Jobs and Apple were synonymous with each other in the public eye. Because so many of us own iPods and iPhones we feel a connection to the company. The company was named Apple to give it a friendly, approachable identity. The company’s hallmark is devices with a great user interface. They are all about ease of use. They make our lives easier/nicer, so in some way we think they are caring for us.

“Expressing sentiment over Jobs’ death is also acknowledging our emotional attachment to that microchip which has done so much for us. And which we will throw away as soon as the new model comes out.”

Perhaps that’s true for some people.  My reaction goes much deeper than that, though, based on my history with Apple computers and Jobs.

My husband and I were early Apple uses, starting off with the Apple 1 in the 1980s, way before the Macintosh. We eschewed the PC (which then required understanding DOS to do anything significant with it) in favor of Apple despite the objections and disdain of our colleagues and even some friends. We did so because Apple 1 and then the Mac were indisputably better products.

Eventually, I was required by my university to drop the Mac and switch to the PC because they said they couldn’t support two operating systems. The few of us who were Mac users argued and objected to no avail.  If we were using university dollars, we had to buy a Windows-based PC.

Around the same time period, Diallo, my husband, had a similar experience with a major corporation. They gave all new employees a PC to work on. Diallo discovered an unused Mac in the back room and brought it to his desk and started using it.  A few days later, he was told to return the Mac to the back room and use the PC instead. Why?  “Because if you start using the Mac, everyone will want one, and we don’t want to support it,” he was told. At the time IBM was king in the computing world. It was safe and it was known.  Even though they knew that the Mac was a superior product, the company didn’t want to put their stamp on an unknown upstart like Apple.

Even today, whenever I use my PC and have to close out a folder or shut down a document before I can throw it in the recycling bin or send it to someone, I miss my Mac. If I try to copy a file from some device to my PC and it starts copying and then in the middle of copying tells me that I don’t have enough disk space, I miss my Mac because it did those calculations first before wasting my time. If I want to move my whole file set and operating system to another hard drive on Windows, I have to spend hours rebuilding and reinstalling everything.  On the Mac, I could just copy all the files over and boot without a hitch.

I could fill pages with more examples. While the Mac was an acknowledged superior product, we were each told by our organizations that we couldn’t use it in our work because the known was preferred over the unknown.

Jobs emphasized the customer experience above all else.  He was even fired for it, yet he persisted in this one principle through failures and successes, and he prevailed.  He built all of his companies on his vision of a world where technology served human beings and not the other way around.

If you want to understand what Steve Jobs means to people like my husband and me, go back to that famous 1984 Superbowl commercial where greyed out people were listening to a man, Big Brother, on a huge screen.  Big Brother declared, “We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology — where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory truths.”  A woman jogger, clad in a white tank top and red shorts and chased by automatons, runs in quietly. She throws a sledge hammer at the screen, destroying it.

Now think of a tiny group of faculty members trying in vain to get their institution to support the Mac, or an employee at a corporation being told to return a brand new, unused Mac to the backroom and instead do his work on a clunky PC.  If you can imagine us feeling like pests purveying contradictory truths, you will have the idea.

Neither Steve Jobs nor Apple were perfect. Any company of Apple’s size will have its issues. I’ll leave it to others to chronicle any of their serious transgressions. I don’t believing in letting the thorn overwhelm the beauty of the bloom.

Jobs committed his life and his talents to excellence, service, innovation, and commitment to his ideals despite all obstacles. As an authentic leader, he was an inspiration to millions, including me. I salute him.