Leading without competing

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I am not in a dream. Today I had such a great time with an interview for an upcoming episode of Business Matters. This episode, which we will air at the end of next week, is about GREAT small businesses. You may not know it, but small businesses represent over 1/2 of our economic output. Pretty amazing…

Today’s interview was with Jon Cates of Broadway Cafe in Kansas City. I won’t give the whole story away (otherwise why would you want to listen to the radio program?) but i will say a bit about why I was so excited about our conversation.

I think one of the defining myths of capitalism is that if you don’t focus on the competition you will not succeed. I have thought about that a lot over the past few years. It has seemed to me that this approach often is both distracting and does not produce the results expected. It seems to me that the best and most sustainable approach is a commitment to be the best at what you do so that your customers will never consider going anywhere else.

This simple statement of being your best requires that you give it all you have. It isn’t a half-hearted kind of thing. I find that most of the corporate clients I work with have a strong sense of winning over someone else; fighting the competitors and so on. Yet there is too little attention put on being the best. Being the best is both a personal commitment and also includes the actions that both confirm that commitment and inspire those around me. Each day everyone in the organization creates a customer experience that is better than the one from yesterday.

A tall order, however, when it is the unwavering focus of the leaders amazing things happen.

What brought Jon to my attention was a story that one of our producers told me about how Jon’s establishment thrived even when a Starbucks opened up close by. How is this possible? It wasn’t by reshaping their approach to “compete” with Starbucks. It wasn’t by a new marketing plan (they don’t spend any money on advertising). It was by simply doing better what they already did and not put any attention on what Starbucks was doing.

I can’t wait to share the story with you next week.

Until later,

Thomas

Technorati Tags: Accountability, business, dotherightthing, innovation, inspiration, integrity, leadership, Passion, Purpose, success, values, Wisdom

Parenting and Leadership

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader. – John Quincy Adams

I teach about leadership in my day job. It can be a very rewarding experience. I think that sometimes we think of leadership in too narrow a framework. It is what those in power or authority do. Yet, real leadership, the type that inspires, can be practiced by anyone.

As if to make this point, my wife, Sherry, showed our children the courage and commitment of leadership. The story begins with Sherry and four children driving on one of the state highways in our area. The speed limit on that stretch of road is 50MPH. In her rear view mirror, my wife watched as a car approached her minivan at high speed. The driver seemed to be in a great hurry. So much so that she was driving very close to the rear bumper of my Sherry’s minivan.

Sherry became concerned over the safety of the situation so she increased her speed to 60 mph. The person following increased her speed as well so that her car was again extremely close to the rear bumper of my wife’s car. Sherry became anxious for the safety of not only herself and the kids but the driver of the other car.

After a few more tense moments, my wife decided to slow down. At least if the other car was going slower, she thought, the potential for an accident would be less. Not long after Sherry slowed down, the driver of the car behind her passed and went on her way.

My wife was troubled by this situation. As she considered what to do, she had the premonition on where the driver of this car was. She felt she could find her at a near by Wendy’s (how she is able to have hightened intuition will be a topic of future Blog). So she decided to drive to Wendy’s and see if the driver was there. Sure enough as she pulled into the Wendy’s parking lot, the car that had created such potential havoc was parked there. My wife parked her minivan and told the kids she was going to talk to this driver.

Now she didn’t take this lightly. Her insides were rumbling and her legs were shaking. As she was preparing to leave the car, the older boys (10 and 13) were curious about what she would do. In fact, the older one wanted to follow her into Wendy’s to see what would happen. Sherry didn’t think this was such a good idea.

So in she went. There was the driver of the tail gating car filling a container of catsup after receiving her order. Sherry walked over to this young woman and asked her is she realized the danger she had created with her reckless driving. She emphasized that the car she so closely tail gated was filled with four children and that her behavior was simply unacceptable.

I believe this young woman probably was in shock at being so clearly called to accountability for her actions. She had no response to my wife’s entreaty.

How many times are each of us faced with situations where we know we are called to do something courageous to bring attention to something that just isn’t right. Perhaps we are afraid of what the other person will think of us. Perhaps we are afraid of some sort of attack. Whatever our reason, we let the situation slide and never know if someone else may be at the effect of the same situation we experienced.

This simple and courageous act had an impact on the children. They could witness fist hand someone they respect “doing the right thing.”

What about you. Do you have an instance like Sherry’s you would like to share? Do you feel that as a parent you are a leader? Do you act when you know you should?

Until later,

Thomas

Technorati Tags: authenticity, children, courage, dotherightthing, inspiration, integrity, Knowing, leadership, Trust, Truth, Wisdom

In Memory – Alex Elyjiw

This morning was a good morning to wake up. It was the date of celebration of my birth. I looked around me and saw our younger children and my wife asleep and felt contentment. I grabbed my IPhone, which had signaled me it was time to awake and walked into the bathroom for a good teeth brushing.

As I sat down to see what was ahead in my day, I glanced at an email from a business colleague. He was giving me some information concerning an upcoming trip and at the end of his note, he said that he wanted to share some sad news. Alex Elyjiw had died over the weekend.

I often don’t have a strong response to hearing such news. This time was different. I haven’t know Alex for long and our relationship didn’t extend beyond the office. Yet I feel that I knew him in a way that was very personal. When we first met, he was getting ready to go visit his son who lives in Florida with his mom and step-dad. Alex was clearly excited about spending time with Lucas. He was also remarking about the respectful relationship he had with his former wife and her husband. Whatever the issues they may have had that lead to their divorce there were long in the past.

I saw Alex a week or so after his Florida trip and he was filled with such love of his son and an exuberance to share all parts of his trip including many pictures. This passion for life carried over into his life with his fiance and his friends fortunately for me to his relationships at work. I always felt more alive after a visit with him.

What got me thinking though was not so much the question of mortality, but the question of relationships. I realize that I can have at times an almost transactional nature to relationships. These are relationships that I put time into because I am involved with some work related project with the other person. When our work involvement stops for a while, then I will often fall out of connection with that person. In the case of Alex, after the project we were working on concluded, I put my attention elsewhere.

What a loss for me. By my neglect, I missed out continuing to be in the presence of this wonderful man. As I considered this more today, I can look back over my life and see lots of times when I moved on with other people as well. I was too busy with doing to allow myself to be with those that touch my life and I theirs.

What a poignant reminder on my birthday. Alex you are remembered with love,

Until later,

Thomas

Technorati Tags: authenticity, courage, Gratitude, humility, Imagination, Practices, Relocalization, Self, Self-sufficiency, Trust, Truth, Wisdom

Its all in the story

Storytelling is an ancient and honorable act. An essential role to play in the community or tribe. – Russell Banks

It seems that I have some great “Ah ha” moments early in the day (Maybe I will write about why that is at a different time). This morning as I laid in bed at the border between being awake and sleeping, I was listening to a Podcast of a program called, Radio Lab. This program from WNYC, is one of freshest and most authentic programs around. If you haven’t listened to it I encourage you to give it a listen.

Back to the story. The particular broadcast was taken from an address that one of the co-hosts, Robert Krulwich made to the 2008 graduating class at Cal Tech. This podcast titled, Tell me a story, really got my interest.

Robert in his very funny and provocative comments challenges these new scientist to consider the importance of making science understandable to those who don’t really understand science. He first contrasts two approaches to talking about science. The first is Sir Issac Newton who wrote Principia Mathematica which is truly a dense piece of scientific writing. Newton apparently felt he didn’t want to waste time writing for anyone except serious scientist. This was contrasted to the approach of Galleo who wanted everyone to understand what he discovered. It was so understandable that it got Galleo in a bit of trouble.

Krulwich goes on to talk about the current trend in the public schools in Turkey where creationism has become the defacto standard to explain human existence and teaching about evolution can get a teacher, at a minimum ,fired. This trend was fostered by a very good storyteller who has convinced many that his creationism approach is the only viable explanation for how the human came into being.

This got me to thinking that really great storytelling is so important to creating change. A story well told can bring people out of their seats and into action. This is true if you run a business or are a parent or care about a local community issue. You want people to feel the story you are telling.

A leading thinker in the human potential movement, Michael Murphy in his book “The Future of the Body: Explorations Into the Further Evolution Of Human Nature” makes an very interesting observation. He says that one of the fundamental defining characteristics of being a human is that we are story telling beings. He feels that it must be in our DNA. We are constantly trying to understand the world through stories.

If we can find a story that makes sense of something then we often grab hold of it, even if we haven’t fully considered whether we really believe the story. So it is so important to help people understand with our simple stories. We don’t need to tell the story to get all the details perfect. We are called to tell stories so that people can feel the “music” of what we are expressing. Over time we can fill in the details if needed.

The “Ah ha” for me was that I have often tried to get the details perfect in everything that I do. I will think, “Oh I can’t say that because it isn’t complete or it might be misinterpreted”. What I now feel is important is to just tell the story. Let the music be my guide and the lyrics will follow. If more explanation is required, OK. I will do that later.

What do you think?

Until later,

Thomas

Technorati Tags: authenticity, inspiration, selfexpression, Storytelling, success, Wisdom

Learning the hard way!

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. ~Alvin Toffler

Yesterday was one of those experiences that I will not soon forgot (at least I hope not). I was getting ready to leave the house when I remarked to my wife about the comment of our 13 years old about how clean the glasses were. As part of our ongoing campaign to reduce our energy consumption, we have started hand washing our dishes rather than use a very energy inefficient dishwasher.

It seems that the glasses that I was washing did not meet his standard for purity. My wife asked me a rather simple question, “Do you wash the glasses first.” My immediate response was, “well of course.” Now I was thinking that what she was asking was, “Did i wash the glasses.” I am sure that i was a bit snitty in my response. After a few minutes passed, I realized that maybe my wife was asking a different question than I heard. So I asked her what she meant by the question. She said, “Oh, I was asking if the glasses were the first thing you wash before the water got greasy from other dishes.” I thought, oh was I ever wrong in my reaction.

This simple dialogue got me thinking. How often do I react to some simple interaction with someone else and never understand what they are really saying. In the case of the dish washing, I never thought about washing glasses first so her idea made total sense once I understood it.

If I react to someone’s questions about how I did something with either a very strong assurance that I was doing it right or some defensive response two things happen. First I have diminished my connection with the other person. They certainly do not want to continue with this dialogue with me. More importantly, I am cutting myself off from learning something new.

How often do I do this. Quite often. I have accepted the conventional wisdom that as a seasoned, experienced person, I should know some things better than other people. This arrogance can only lead to blindness. I will find a time when I either miss something or do something less than optimally. The consequence will not be particularly what I have in mind and may have a very strong impact on my relationships and success.

I also see this type of behavior in many of the executive I work with. Their peers and subordinates are often wary to point out anything that the executive would take as a criticism even if it is meant as a comment to help the mutual success of everyone. Today’s lesson is still reverberating in me and I am hopeful that I will not forget it.

What is your experience with reaction to others asking questions about what you do?

Until later,

Thomas

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What’s true?

“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” William Shakespeare in Hamlet

OK, today is a day when I get up on a soap box. I really try not to do this because I know that if I do, I then have to also go sort out what I am doing that is like what I am railing about. Sometimes this self-examination is very uncomfortable and I am not going to let my fear of the discomfort slow me down.

I am staying at a Marriott hotel in the Rochester area. This hotel is called the Marriott – Rochester Airport. The only thing is that the airport is 6.6 miles from this hotel. I kinda expect to find an airport hotel if not in spitting distance to the airport at least you won’t break a sweat driving there.

What really is annoying me though is the pervasive use of exaggeration in the marketing of goods and services. At one level, I guess I have been in the pack with most everyone in saying, “Well I guess that is just the way that it is.” You know, I am finding that this position is not how I want my children to find the world.

I look around and there is so many examples of exaggeration in how things are spoken about – the politician speaking about their record (or promises); the corporation speaking about its new products; a school system speaking about its academic performance. The list goes on and on and on.

What is behind this need to be more than I am? As I examine this in myself, I can feel an almost involuntary need to spruce up the image that others have of me. I can’t even remember why I want to do that – it’s so automatic. There must have been some point where I found that this was a good idea.

Just because I have been doing this for most of my life isn’t a good reason to continue. What am I to do? I guess the first thing to do is to watch how I talk and write about myself. I will become sort of a word police and make sure that what I say doesn’t have any fudging in it. That’s going to take some doing as I’m sure I must do it often.

Once I get going on myself, I can take some of this energy I have about the truth and funnel it into helping others stop needing to be more than they are… Now that’s going to be an interesting experiment…. Stay tuned..

Until later.

Thomas

Technorati Tags: Accountability, authenticity, courage, dotherightthing, integrity, leadership, Truth, Wisdom

Acceptance

First a short traditional Zen Buddhist story:

In a small hut, Hakuin live a quiet life devoted to monastic purity. When the young unmarried daughter of a the village grocer became pregnant, she named Hakuin as the father. Her outraged parnts went to Hakuin and charged him with the deed. Hakuin simply said, “Is that so?”

When the child was born, once again the parents came to Hakuin. They handed him the baby and demanded he take responsibility for raising it. Hakuin said, “Is that so!” and took the baby in his arms. He dutifully began to look after the infant.

A year later, the young woman could bear it no longer. She confessed that the real father was a young man who worked in a nearby fishmarket. The parents went to Hakiun once more, this time making deep apologies, and asked him to return the child. Hakuin said only, “Is that so” and gave the baby back to them.

I have been reflecting on this story for the past few weeks. First, I couldn’t imagine myself having the detachment of this master. Here a noble man allowed someone to accuse him of an act that was in total violation of all that he exemplified. He never defended himself or tried to dissuade the parents that he was not the father of the child.

How often has someone accused me of something and my first reaction was an aggressive defense of myself. I was determined to show the other person that not only were they wrong and I was right; there was some flaw in them that would have them think such a thing about me. Never once did I consider them. Never once did I consider how some aspect of what they said might ring true. Never once did I care about anything but looking good.

Another part of the lesson comes when the “truth” is discovered. The parents ask for forgiveness and the master only accepts then without response. He shows me the great gift of compassion. For there is nothing that need be said.

Again as I look within, I see times when I was falsely accused of something. If I didn’t at first get the impression corrected, I was always waiting for the other person to “see the light”. If they did, I would be “gracious” on the surface and truthfully I would be pushing them to do something to make up for the “injustice” they had perpetrated upon me.

As I look around, I can see defensiveness and righteousness throughout the corporate world. So much time is spent in who is right rather than on how can we best serve.

What does this story mean to you?

Until later.

Thomas

Technorati Tags: Accountability, authenticity, courage, dotherightthing, humility, integrity, selfexpression, Trust, Truth, Wisdom

What happens when you turn the audio on?

Being myself is more than enough!

A few days ago, I was flying on United Airlines. The flight was pretty normal as far as the basic circumstances of flying. We boarded early and I watched as passengers filled the plane. As the boarding process was underway, I noticed a man sitting across the aisle from me talking rather loudly with a female passenger siting next to him.

I was reading something so while I was aware of the conversation near me, I didn’t pay attention to the details. The plane door was closed and we taxied for takeoff. Just as we got to the runway, the aircraft stopped and the pilot’s voice came over the public address system. “We have been informed by the FAA, that lightening has struck one of the radar systems at Chicago O’Hare (our destination) and at the moment there is a ground stop in Chicago. We are going to be on the ground here at least an hour.”

After this announcement the pilot allowed the passengers to use their cell phones if they wanted. This man that I had previously noticed started engaging in a very loud cell phone conversation. He was talking about the person sitting next to him on the plane. He said,”You would not believe it. I am sitting next to a Vice President of IBM (not the name of the company he mentioned but it is of the same name recognition)” He went on to talk in detail to this person about the content of his conversation with the person sitting next to him. I was clear that he didn’t realize that the whole cabin was aware of his conversation, including the person about whom he was speaking.

She leaned over to the person sitting next to me and voiced her discomfort in being so publicly exposed. I could feel her angst. I noticed that I was also feeling uncomfortable. I was wondering why was I feeling this way since the person was clearly not not talking about me.

As I sat with my discomfort, I found that while the guy was being so public with his conversation about how important he felt because he as talking to a Vice President of IBM, I had felt similar feelings to his. Now I never was so public in my discussions. Yet, I did brag as he was about my “accomplishment”. I did this while treating the other person as an object. Because this passenger had turned “on the audio” of his mind in such a public way, I was able to see myself.

As I further explored my discomfort, I was able to see that I have, on occasion, felt that I was important merely because of the people with whom I associated. This feeling exposed areas where I was feeling insufficient or insignificant. I had the belief that I could fill these holes through my associations with “important” people.

I know that this is never true. First I never really have anything lacking in myself. Any belief to the contrary is an illusion. I also realize that my associations with other simply because of what they can do for me are hollow at best and are a very overt way to use other people only for my purposes.

This is a good alert for me. While I can see that this behavior is reduced in my life, my discomfort showed me that it still lingers. I will be watchful is this creeps into my life so that I can stop it before it can reach full bloom.

What an interesting day on the plane!

Until later,

Thomas

Technorati Tags: authenticity, courage, dotherightthing, humility, integrity, leadership, Truth, Wisdom

What is a “real” relationship?

One of the great things about writing from the heart is that there is always plenty of material to share with you. Well, that’s true when I decide to share my inner dialogues without holding back anything out of fear of how I will look or what you might think of me. In the world of blogging it is particularly challenging for whatever I write is available to anyone who wants to read it – my family, the people I work with, people that I want to be in relationship with and mostly folks I don’t know at all.

This morning I awoke with a letter to my daughter in my heart. The starting place was one of frustration with her not being a way that I wanted her to be. As I wrote, I found that the only place to write from was focusing on me. What was it that I was feeling and where did I feel that I was not measuring up to my own inner standards?

An interesting thing happened. I began to be more and more honest with myself and in this openness, I felt more and more free. I also realized that the message I was writing about family actually applied to all relationships. So I have revised a part of my letter to my daughter to share with you.

What is a true relationship? I think the answer to that question is both complicated and simple. The complicated part comes from the beliefs that I have about what it should be. These beliefs come from who knows where – what I was told when I grew up – what I saw in the movies – my dreams of a perfect life. Whatever the origin these beliefs create an unreal world that I am constantly trying to create.

The simple answer is the question of what is true relationship seems to me to be one where I offer unconditional love and I don’t not have any attachment to who someone ought to be or any agenda of what I want from them.

The choice of what does true relationship mean is obviously very personal and my choice doesn’t mean that it is the right one for anyone other than me. This understanding is helping me though as I look at my life and see where I say I am in a true relationship yet I have a neediness that wants to be filled or a standard of behavior that I feel the other person must meet.

So often I find that my relationships come from wanting something from someone – I would like you to be my client – I want you to help me feel secure – I want to feel wanted. The list can go on and on.

What would it be like to not engage any relationship except from unconditional love and having no agenda or need? What I bring to the relationship is myself (unadorned) in service.

As I write this, I can feel a lot of fear rise up. As I watch it swirl around, I know that I am feeling a discomfort – a discomfort that is from living a life of agendas and unspoken needs. How will it be to live without this approach? I don’t know and I am going to find out – fear or not….

I will let you know how this unfolds.

With appreciation and service,

Thomas

Technorati Tags: authenticity, courage, dotherightthing, integrity, Knowing, leadership, Peacefulness, Truth, Wisdom

What do you do when you feel?

Anger is a feeling that makes your mouth move faster than your mind. – Evan Esar

I have been working through a situation that has taken a great deal of my attention. A friend who is also a client made repeated promises to me concerning a contract. I was assured of the terms of the contract were agreed to and the paperwork would be forthcoming. A few days ago, I was informed that the terms had dramatically changed.

I was upset by this and in some way not surprised. I was upset for I had counted on this person’s word. I was not surprised because this person had not been reliable in the past.

The lessons for me have been pouring forth. For one thing, I wondered why I would place confidence in someone who is not reliable. I realized that I did this because I wanted something. I wanted the security that the promised contract brought me. Rather than focus only on how I could be in service, I was focused as much on the money that was going to flow my way. I find that any time that I get focused on the money first I am out of integrity. This person was showing me my own unreliability and I am grateful for that.

Another lesson is how to feel something, such as anger and not let it take over my life. It is understandable that I would feel anger. I could hear a little voice saying, “you teach people not to be attached to their feelings so you shouldn’t feel this emotion of anger.” That is not real. I did feel it. I let it rise up and engulf my whole body. What I didn’t do it allow myself to take any action from this place of anger. The anger became a teacher for me. As I was feeling this anger, I could feel times where I had betrayed this person. I could feel times when I had been out of integrity. I could feel times when I feel unsupported. I could feel my anger with myself.

As each layer of awareness appeared, I was able to claim these feelings and own my responsibility for my past actions. As I was doing this, freedom came over me. I no longer felt anger. In fact, what I was feeling was forgiveness of myself. The feelings I had toward the other person were calm and I can feel gratitude and peace.

What a ride.

Until later,

Thomas

Technorati Tags: authenticity, courage, Feeling, Gratitude, integrity, Knowing, leadership, Peacefulness, Trust, Truth, Wisdom