Life as an experiment

I have been through many types of military training. It was when I was put into those situations and had to decide and act that I learned what worked and what didn't work for me. I didn't believe I was capable of planning a train movement with a 60 vehicle unit comprised of tanks until I did it the first time. I also didn't realize I could outthink and outmaneuver someone who had more rank and experience. I also realized that when things get heavy I get quiet and people need their leaders to communicate. Right or wrong, be bold.

I have been through business training and have a business degree. As much as I learned about the parts of a business, it is only through launching a business that business leaders learn how to lead businesses. What worked in business last year could very well be ineffective in the change of internet marketing, social media, data science, and artificial intelligence this year. Many business owners fail repeatedly before they figure out how to succeed. I have been through doctoral level work on educational leadership and I still fail at leadership in different areas. It is through doing and reflecting that we learn ourselves how we learn and refine on a practice that works for us. 

Performance coaching of scripting and role-playing bite-sized parts to prepare for actual conversations and getting feedback to refine your approaches is valuable. Sales training does this where they role-play sales calls and go through the possible responses to try different tactics before making calls. Supportive schools do this with teachers to help them practice and prepare to succeed at lessons. That is actual practice at the actual work with a way to improve. I learned a lot by trying a coaching conversation using a sparse script, then doing it with a provided script and resources to point to for examples. That full preparation makes a world of difference. I learned that by trying it both ways.

In the animal kingdom animals learn from watching a hunter hunt, then they hunt. It could be that throwing students into a problem or a writing first could help them learn faster than teaching them your method first. They could be a good writer or problem-solver and you just have to refine their work in specific places. They could find a novel way to solve a problem or think or write you did not consider. Either way, the habit of not putting it off, the Do Now, and learning by doing gets reinforced. Then, they may pay more attention when they realize they need more information to be a better performer and pay attention to what you have to share. 

There is a saying I heard in a Kung Fu movie growing up: When the student is ready, the master will appear. I thought that was some mystical wisdom. However, until you relaize you need help you aren't looking for a teacher. Creating a need for help through failure may be the best way to make a good student. Motivation is key for learning and preventing the uncomfortable feeling of failure works after you have experienced failure. Another reality is that each person will likely fail at something in their life if they are taking risks.Google admits they accept that many of their projects will fail, but the ones that succeed more than make up for the losses and the knowledge they get from the ones that fail are valuable. They also know they will get passed up standing still. Creating a healthy relationship with failure as an opportunity to learn by trying something boldly and courageously help people live fully as we talk about the reality of the concept of a growth mindset. To one who seeks to live and learn, encouragement of the experimental mindset is the best recommendation. 

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himeslf in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."  - Teddy Roosevelt

Truly Seeing

I have been reading Look, about phenomenology, the practice at looking at a phenomenon, without judgement, to try to see what most miss, to draw insights other people don't because they stop looking and start analyzing, judging. In my data science classes, I am learning the process of coding information for comouter processing. In our stream of consciousness, I am thinking we are doing collecting and processing at the same time, continuously switching from one to the other. I wonder if trying to analyze and process the things I miss seeing and collecting information. I wonder if in overthinking, I miss seeing. Daniel Kahneman in Thinking Fast and Slow, talks about how our brain operates at two speeds, fast automatic thinking or slow deliberate thinking. While fast thinking is useful in ordinary and automated, slow deliberate thinking leads to deeper and wise decision making.

How do we instill deep slow thinking and thought-free observing into our practice? It would seem to be more effective to work it that way. Would scheduling journaling and deep-thinking questioning help with letting go in the moment and collect information better?

Love Justice

I have a sense and hope that there is coming a tipping point in the greed and audacity of the rich and powerful. I hope that it is in time to stop much of the exploitation of the leverage the rich have to set the rules of the economy to benefit them. This week Congress is planning to pass a tax plan that will grossly benefit the rich and ultimately cost the middle class and poor in income and social supports. In the same week they took away Net neutrality rules that allow those with the control of access to the internet to tax those without for access.

The problem with happiness in this country according to economists is not the lack of wealth at the top. The problems with happiness have to do with corruption and lack of social supports according the World Happiness Report 2017 (http://worldhappiness.report/ed/2017/). The argument for the Republican candidate in the last election was the corruption of the elite in Washington. Now the elite in Washington are capping a decade where we all spent digging out of a recession they created by taking more of the wealth. This is with a backdrop of already having the majority of the wealth already.

I hope that the wins in Virginia and Alabama are a harbinger of a populace sick of being squeezed. Last week, I was shocked that some medicine I had to buy for my daughter was over $200. After calling the doctor, she wrote a prescription costing $17. Imagine the lack of morality it takes to upcharge $200 on a prescription that a child needs to get well. The sad part is that other life-saving drugs have been raised much higher. Medicine was once a profession one got into to help other people get better, not to maximize profit.

The mindshift of seeing capitalism as a feature of Americanism is at the point of being strongly questioned. It has been assumed that capitalism is an American feature. That stands in contrast of the commonwealth that Christian communities first built in the New World. Christianity is primarily a "give to those in need" , non-material philosophy. Younger generations are heavily questioning the capitalistic/materialistic values of their parents and grandparents. They have seen the lack of happiness it creates. Bernie Sanders spoke to the younger generations and in that he may hold the future as people tend to get hardened in their positions as they get older.

Culture and symbols

This weekend we were honored to present the "arras", the coins representing wealth in a marriage ceremony. I hand the chest of coins to the husband, who then hands them to the wife. It is a showing that marriage is sharing our gifts with each other. It is what the essence of a marriage is defined and dependent on: giving of ourselves and our gifts and wealth to another. We cannot be assured that the gift will be returned. We can only give in faith and love because that is what we believe.

In organizational leadership, it is good practice to show sacrifice to the organization. Whether it be time or money, the important point is that we set the example of giving to others in order for the expectation to be followed throughout the rest of the organization. People want to believe that they are living and working for something good, something worthwhile. Giving is a noble act and creates a positive emotion in the organization that the group that they are working with is good.

Jesus spoke of his sacrifice, of how it was necessary for the holy spirit to come and help the church to succeed. That model of sacrifice was repeated over and over throughout the establishment of the church. The more the enemies of the church tried to kill the church, the more the church grew due to the willing sacrifice of those followers. Now even the military speaks in terms of shaping hearts and minds rather than body count because they have learned the futility of stopping a movement through the physical death of any number of followers.

Another interesting thing to know about sacrifice is that it is enjoyable. Though we believe that the truth "It is better to give than to receive." is only on a spiritual level, psychology has done experiments on giving and have found that spending on others gives us a more positive feeling for a longer period of time than spending on ourselves. According to the article, it has to do with reinforcing our self-image as a giving person.

As a leader, how do you sacrifice to others? What are some ways you can make sacrifice and giving to others a part of your organization's culture? Do you enjoy giving? What are new ways that you can give that you are not doing currently? What kind of giving will have the biggest impact on the people you serve?

Don't Conform, Transform

"Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." - Romans 12:2

     I have been focusing my dissertation in the area of transformational learning. The thinking in an area of transformational learning is that we have three ways of learning, according to Kegan and Lahey's Immunity to Change:

1. The Socialized Mind - we think what we are told to think by society - our family and people in authority.
2. The Self Authoring Mind - We create our own set of beliefs, ways of thinking, and values and agendas.
3. The Self-transforming Mind - the ability to see our beliefs and ways of thinking and acting in an objective way and change them to help us improve.

     This verse has an interesting connection to this area of study, especially when looking at the terms conform, transform, and renew. Jesus had said that we should come into his kingdom as children, which is tied to the concept of beginner's mind. A beginner's mind is the idea that as we work and experience things, we start to filter out things that a beginner would notice. One example is how novice astronomers find stars because they don't have those filters and beliefs prejudged. We tend to look at our reality in he same way with these filters and don't renew our mind.

     One method of engaging in a beginner's mind is the Inquiry method. The Inquiry method is looking at things from an exploration and questioning frame rather than a knowing and explaining frame of mind. In many instances, fatal flaws in business were in the successul answering of the wrong questions. The patient formulation and reformulation of good questions become critical.

     Interestingly, in looking at economic transformation Jesus transformed from a manufacturing industry (carpentry) to a service industry (healthcare). Not just providing physical healing, but psychological healing over guilt, and social healing through love and forgiveness. Instead of conforming to social expectations, he transformed into something the world needed more. How can we use transformational learning to change the world?

    



Fear, faith, hope, mindfulness,

     This week, I have had a few meetings in where I was worried about the outcomes only to find that they turned out much better than I expected. It reminded me of studies of learned optimism by Dr. Seligman. Some people are programmed to look at the bright side of things. As has been often stated, looking at the glass as half full. This characteristic is powerful in leadership, as research has shown that the emotional energy of leaders is transferred to the follower. Persistence, a leadership quality, is also linked to optimism; people persist when they have hope and faith that their efforts will yield results.

     I link optimism to the term hope in religious context. Christian scripture talks about the importance of maintaining hope. Psalms 32:10 recites that "Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord". The bible shows that there are times in leadership where hope has been lost with poor effects on the leader and their followers. It also shows the power of hope to transcend death and the best efforts by the powerful and resourceful to stamp out the organization and movement.

     This led me to think this morning on my prayer walk of where we put our trust. Where we put our trust dictates what changes will determine a change in our hope and our well-being. For example, if we put our trust in our bank account, then when the account depletes, a person will lose hope. If a person puts their hope in another person and that person doesn't come through, then their hope diminishes. I think of stories of campaign managers who see their candidate change once they have power and become jaded or a person who puts their trust in a lover only to have that person let them down and are devastated. Conversely, we see mini-lessons in sports where an awful occurrence happens in a game that should have ended any chances of a win, only to have a comeback.

     Yesterday I read a passage that really put the issue in perspective. Those who put their trust in the Lord shall not live in fear. In fact, those who put their trust in God shall be strengthened. "31 but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint." God, being constant, gives us a consistency in a universe that is in constant change. Our bank accounts may change, the political powers may change, conflicts come and they go, business cycles change, laws change, jobs change, but God and his love for us never changes. That is a powerful resource for people, especially leaders.
     I used to think it unrealistic the charge Jesus gave of not worrying. Worrying is part of having a brain. We naturally look out for danger. However, neurology has shown us the deteriorating effects of worry on the brain. Life has also given me the belief that the things we see coming are rarely the things that leave us blindsided. It is the things we cannot see. That is where a primary trust in God allows us to focus on our work at hand as he watches over us. The lack of worry relaxes the amygdala, allowing our frontal cortex to think creatively and critically.
     Daniel Goleman explains that our focus is primary to successes and how we experience our lives. Those who are able to focus for long periods of time on a task experience better results than those who are easily distracted. Malcolm Gladwell identifies a commonality in those who are successful to their ability to spend large amounts of focused time on their pursuits. The endemic effect of worrying is that there is no location you can go to get away from it. There has to be a way for you to internally justify moving your attention away from it. In some cases, there are things one can do to address worries. For other issues, one has to put faith in something. How good it is we can put our faith in something constant. 
      

With Hope

It is interesting that the world is celebrating an American icon in Mohammed Ali with his confidence and swagger. His boasts and bragging and back and forth with media and personalities that were highly respected showed a self value that was labeled as cocky when it was on display. His public stances on his beliefs were flash points with much of American value leaders, especially his conversion to the Muslim faith and his refusal to go to Vietnam, but he had the confidence to hold to them. Now he is revered as a genuine image in line with the American brand of authentic voice. Hauser writes a wonderful article that captures his place in American history.

It would have been hard to imagine that poor young black man from Louisville would have that kind of courage and self-assurance. What made him so confident? It would have been arguable that he talked himself up out of fear and insecurity, but his persona never seemed to break. He seemed strong, courageous and self assured throughout his life, even with his later struggles he didn't hide in the shadows.

In the modern positive psychology movement, Seligman (1991) explains the presence or absence of optimism, the absence being learned helplessness and the effect it has on the person's mindset and the choices that they make, which effects the results of his or her experience. If one has learned optimism, they will use an optimistic outlook to their situations, which will encourage them to try and persist, which creates a greater likelihood to succeed. If a person has learned helplessness, they will see challenges as insurmountable and normally decide to quit trying and fail. Seligman argues that these mindsets can be cultivated and offers some processes to apply to create a more optimistic mindset. One of them is to meditate on positive things.

For Christians, Jesus identifies hope as one of the major ideas he wants his disciples to remember and practice. As it so happens, positive psychology research agrees with that assessment. It would be argued that with the pressures and oppression that early Christians had, it would have been the focus on hope that allowed the disciples of Christ to endure. Goleman (2013) explains that its the things we pay attention to that determine our experiences, thoughts about those experiences, and the choices we make in response to those thoughts. That is why Phillipians 4:8 instructs us to think about what is good, noble, beautiful, and praiseworthy. It isn't religious flowery speech, it is a formula for better living.