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The Value of Authenticity

Good day, team,

This week’s challenge is about authenticity. Last week, I had the fortunate experience of watching a wonderful video clip at the end of the ABC evening news. As you may know, many of the major news broadcasters are trying to add a bit of positive news at the end of their evening programs to finish on an uplifting note. In the midst of all the bad news they report, I think it’s a nice change to have them focus on a feel-good story.

That evening, ABC showed a video of Susan Boyle, the middle-aged, single, unemployed Scottish woman who sang on the program “Britain’s Got Talent,” the English equivalent of our “American Idol.” Out she came onto the stage, looking as dowdy as you can imagine but with a good sense of herself and a twinkle in her eye.

The judges sounded incredibly cynical and judgmental when they asked her their basic questions, members of the audience rolled their eyes, and there was definitely a sense that this woman fit into the category of some old frump who was going to make a fool of herself. Until she sang the first note.

Susan Boyle sang “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables,” and I found myself crying, clapping and cheering along with all the other audience members on the show. She was amazing, and the judges were blown away by her performance. Everyone was humbled by their misjudgment and negative attitudes about her when she first appeared on the stage. We all know you can’t judge a book by its cover, and never had this truism been more apparent.

I thought about why this performance had touched me so deeply, and why it is having the same effect on so many others. At last count, more than 12 million people had viewed Susan’s performance on YouTube, and many of us have had the same response. Just go to YouTube and type her name, and you’ll see what I mean.

So what’s going on here? Perhaps we are so starved for something truly authentic that its rare experience touches us deeply in our hearts and souls. Some part of us knows when we are acting falsely, and we suffer terribly as we watch ourselves being someone we’re not or doing something we don’t truly believe in.

It’s not only painful to watch ourselves being inauthentic, it’s also painful to watch others do so. Last week a client mentioned to me how hard it is to watch some of her co-workers trying to be someone they’re not. A sensitive, beautifully feminine woman puts on a “I’m really a tough guy” act. A senior manager covers up his fear of appearing less intelligent than he hopes he is. A financial executive assumes an attitude of power because she controls the numbers, meanwhile having hidden crucial financial information to make herself look good.

We have all created these false personalities to survive whatever environment we found ourselves in. But our external situations change, and when they do, we need to ask ourselves whether that particular personality continues to serve us, or just alienates others and make us look foolish.

In a culture that for decades has thrived on looking young, acting cool, wearing the newest styles, and glorifying being thin and hip, Susan Boyle was a breath of fresh air for being exactly the opposite of all those traits. She allowed all of us to feel good about exactly who we are, regardless of what anyone else thinks.

Your challenge this week is to observe how you “act” with others and see if one of those assumed personalities no longer serves you. Ask yourself what’s preventing you from just being who you are. Try not to impress others so much with what you think they will like or approve of, but rather, allow your own essence to emerge and see if you don’t get a better response.

One of my favorite quotes, enscribed by an unknown author on a grave marker at Boothill Cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona, reads

“Be who you is,

‘cuz if you ain’t

who you is,

Then you is

who you ain’t.”

Have a good week,

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2009 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

Finding Optimism In The Midst of Bad Economic Conditions

Good day, team,

This week I’ve been trying to figure out whether all the bad news we’re hearing about the economy is educating us or making things worse. We have more access to information than any other generation before, and so are more informed, but this plethora of information also colors how we think about events.

For every bit of bad news I read, I can also come up with a number of positive interpretations. But I have to work to turn my perspective around. For example, Powell’s Books (now the biggest book store in the U.S.) decided not to go through with a planned $5 million expansion, even though the company had financing for it. But because of a recent 5 percent drop in sales, Michael Powell didn’t think it was prudent to expand right now.

My first thought was, what bad news. Think of all the people who would have benefited from the jobs created: the architect, the builder, the banker, etc. But then I realized it’s not such a bad idea for Powell’s to think about better ways to use the space it has and support sustainable growth. Maybe it means more job security for the people already employed there if they have to do more with less. And taking a conservative approach sets a good example for future generations of the Powell family members who hope to continue running a successful business.

If I had taken the news on face value, I would have run the risk of believing a partial truth, that is, just one view of the situation. But if I consider the same situation from different viewpoints, I can often find underlying benefits.

It also helps to seek out good news in the midst of all the dire reports about the economy. One such example is the article I’m including here, “Four Reasons Why Ford May Be the Company of the Future,” by Tony Schwartz, president of the Energy Project.

“If you could look inside the inner sanctum at Ford, what would you expect to see? Anxiety? Panic? Despair?

“The economy, after all, is getting worse not better. Monthly car sales in the U.S. have continued to drop precipitously. Ford has lost market share during the past year and reported $5.9 billion of losses in the last quarter of 2009.

“But if you spend a day with CEO Alan Mulally and his top executives, as I did recently, what you discover is a group of people who are laser-focused, hopeful, proud and incredibly passionate about the mission they’re on—even without retention bonuses or long-term incentive plans.

“Here are the four reasons I believe Ford is modeling how companies of the future ought to operate:

“1. Creating value by valuing people. Alan Mulally is fiercely realistic about the steep challenge Ford faces, but he’s infectiously upbeat about their ability to meet it, and he makes the people around him feel good, including about themselves. He truly understands that only positive emotions fuel sustainable high performance and that the more valued people feel, the more they’re freed and inspired to create more value.

“2. Transparency rules. My colleague Annie Perrin and I began our day at Ford at 8 a.m. by attending Ford’s weekly Business Plan Review, which includes all of its senior executives around the world. Outsiders are regularly invited to observe the meeting. Every executive reports any new information that might influence Ford’s overall revenue projections, or any other part of its plan. Mulally operates on the assumption that the truth will set you free, even when it hurts.

“3. Personal responsibility. The day we were there, one Ford executive described a significant shortfall on a particular projection. It was the sort of acknowledgment that might have prompted high drama in many boardrooms. In this case, the executive simply went on to list the ways he intended to address the shortfall over the coming days and invited other suggestions. No energy was wasted in wringing hands or avoiding responsibility or assigning blame. The focus was entirely on solutions.

“4. A mission worth believing in. Mulally believes that ‘to serve is to live,’ and he has rallied the notoriously factionalized and siloed Ford around a shared mission that is simple and compelling: make Ford the leader in quality, safety and fuel efficiency.

“Public opinion may not have caught up yet, but the company has made significant progress on each of those fronts. Consumer Reports last month recommended 70 percent of Ford’s vehicles, for example, versus 17 percent of GM’s and none of Chrysler’s. Ford’s cars have significantly improved in reliability, and the company has an aggressive commitment not just to hybrids, but also to plug-in electric cars and to equaling or exceeding its competitors in fuel efficiency in all classes.

“In the midst of a perfect storm, Mulally has created a culture in which his team is working together closely to create a new kind of company. When the economic clouds finally do part, these executives have a shared conviction that they’ll emerge, along with Toyota and Volkswagen, as one of the three truly global automobile companies.

“I’m not about to bet against them. I haven’t owned an American car in 20 years, but after a day hanging around Mulally and his team, I intend to buy a high-mileage electric Ford as my next one.”

This article encouraged me because, in the midst of great challenge and adversity, a car company executive is rallying his troops and making smart business decisions to accomplish a mission that will benefit many people. He’s using his motto “to serve is to live” as a way to conduct his life with integrity and meaning.

Your challenge this week is to find ways to think positively about what’s happening economically by seeking out optimistic ways to interpret difficult situations. Perhaps you can’t hire someone for a new position but have to think of new ways to train your existing workforce so they work more efficiently. Maybe you plan a celebration at work or at home and think of more creative ways to make it happen, like having a potluck. I have been creating new payment arrangements with some of my clients to make it easier and more equitable for both of us during these lean times. Think of giving your people a mission that’s simple and easy to believe in, something that will allow their passion and commitment to transform much of what is negative into a positive.

As my grandmother used to say, “Try turning lemons into lemonade.”

Have a good week,

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2009 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

How Music and Art Inspire Us and Their Importance In Our Lives

Good day, team,

This morning when I awoke, I found that the music I had listened to yesterday was still in my head and my heart. My husband and I had attended a wedding, and then last evening we went to hear a tabla drumming master.

The wedding ceremony was beautiful, full of memorable moments. But I was left with two distinct impressions: the incredibly beautiful voice of the man (thank you, Kevin Walsh) who sang during the ceremony and the joy I saw on the faces of the bride and groom when they turned to their friends and family at the end of the service.

Later, at the tabla player’s performance, there were dancers and other entertainment, but again I woke up with the memory of the music.

I often think about what in my life leaves the most memorable impressions. If I sit in a meeting for an hour, what am I left with? Often, it’s the expression on someone’s face, or something they said that resonates with me, or the way the light filters into the room.

I also wonder about what goes unnoticed, slipping away as the seconds click by on the clock. Unfortunately, many moments pass when I’m drifting in my own imagination, distracted, or just in a state of dullness I refer to as “a low hum.”

But music wakes me up, even when I don’t like it. It soothes me when I do love the sound and transforms my state in ways that are a mystery to me.

This week’s challenge is about music or art in any form that serves you in that way. What transforms you, gives you that feeling of being uplifted and inspired and changes you in the moment?

My associate Kate Dwyer sent me the following article this morning, coincidentally, about music. It’s an excerpt from a speech by Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of the music division at Boston Conservatory, welcoming the freshman class. (If you’re interested in reading the entire speech, send me an e-mail, and I’ll attach it in my reply.)

“The first people to understand how music really works were the ancient Greeks. And this is going to fascinate you: The Greeks said that music and astronomy were two sides of the same coin. Astronomy was seen as the study of relationships between observable, permanent, external objects, and music was seen as the study of relationships between invisible, internal, hidden objects. Music has a way of finding the big, invisible, moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us. Let me give you some examples of how this works.

“One of the most profound musical compositions of all time is the ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ written by French composer Olivier Messiaen in 1940. Messiaen was 31 years old when France entered the war against Nazi Germany. He was captured by the Germans in June 1940, sent across Germany in a cattle car and imprisoned in a concentration camp.

“He was fortunate to find a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper and a place to compose. There were three other musicians in the camp, a cellist, a violinist, and a clarinetist, and Messiaen wrote his quartet with these specific players in mind. It was performed in January 1941 for four thousand prisoners and guards in the prison camp. Today it is one of the most famous masterworks in the repertoire.

“Given what we have since learned about life in the concentration camps, why would anyone in his right mind waste time and energy writing or playing music? There was barely enough energy on a good day to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm, to escape torture—why would anyone bother with music?

“And yet from the camps we have poetry, we have music, we have visual art; it wasn’t just this one fanatic Messiaen: Many, many people created art. Why? Well, in a place where people are only focused on survival, on the bare necessities, the obvious conclusion is that art must be, somehow, essential for life. The camps were without money, without hope, without commerce, without recreation, without basic respect, but they were not without art. Art is part of survival; art is part of the human spirit, an unquenchable expression of who we are. Art is one of the ways in which we say, ‘I am alive, and my life has meaning.’”

Your challenge this week is to figure out what makes you feel alive and do more of it. In my case, I think I’ll play a piece of music that I particularly enjoy each morning this week before I read the newspaper or go online. Or perhaps I’ll play the music afterwards so that whatever information I take in about how bad the economy is, or how our politicians continue to criticize each other, or which local people were arrested for their terrible deeds, the music will serve to inspire me and give me a better chance at having positive experiences throughout the day. Perhaps you can listen to your favorite radio station on your drive to work or on your iPod if you take the bus. It always makes me happy when I pull up to a stoplight and see someone in the car next to me singing at the top of their lungs and rocking out to a tune that fills their heart with joy.

Whatever it is that gives you that spark of life, realize that it’s not just worth doing, it is essential to your physical well-being and emotional survival. Find time to build it into your day. It will change you, I promise!

Have a good week,

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2009 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

True Leaders

Good day, team,

At the end of last year, I received a holiday card from one of the people who helped redesign my Web site. Her name is *Lyza, and among her many talents, she is also becoming an accomplished printer. I don’t mean digital printing, I mean learning how to print on an old press using traditional printing methods.

The card she sent was an example of her most recent project, and what a gift it was! It was a pleasure to hold it in my hand: Beautifully printed words on a vanilla-colored hard-stock paper with a nice look and feel.
As I read the message on the card, I recognized it as the work of Lao Tzu. In case you’re not familiar with him, Lao Tzu is considered the father of Chinese Taoism. He lived in the 6th century B.C.E. and is the author of the Tao Te Ching (The Book of Changes). If you’re not aware of him, I encourage you to read some of his writings. They are filled with timeless philosophical messages and beautiful poetry.

The card read:

True leaders
are hardly known to their followers.
Next after them are the leaders
the people know and admire;
after them, those they fear,
after them, those they despise.

To give no trust
is to get no trust.

When the work’s done right,
with no fuss or boasting,
ordinary people say,
Oh, we did it.

Lao Tzu (Verse 17 from the Tao Te Ching)

This interpretation comes from Ursula LeGuin, a famous contemporary author who lives here in Portland.

I read the card and I must admit, at first, I didn’t completely understand it. I understood the part about trust and those two lines were printed in red, so they jumped out at me. But the first two lines still puzzled me. So I put the card on my desk in a place where I’d see it each day and decided to wait until I had some time to actually think about it.

Today, I had some extra time to reread the card, and I finally did understand the message. But I also had to ask myself if the first two lines were true. I thought about the people I’ve known in my life whom I consider true leader and it dawned on me that there is some truth to these lines. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they were not known by their followers, but these leaders were known to people in much more subtle ways than you would expect. That is, they didn’t come across as “the boss,” nor were they heavy-handed in any way. They didn’t elicit fear from or intimidate team members, and they were often not the greatest salespeople in the room. They just had a way about them that made other people want to be around them. And they were really good at making decisions that enabled the entire team to be involved in the process. I don’t mean they always achieved consensus, but people wanted to participate with them in whatever they were doing. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that generally everyone who knew them wanted to be a lot more like them.

True leaders inspire people to want to work, to want to be better, to want to get involved. They have a way of increasing our desire to be more than what we are, and they show us what we can become. If they do this in such a way that, in the end, the team gets the credit, then everybody comes out on top.

Your challenge this week is to identify what leadership qualities you have and how your qualities benefit others. If you’re in a leadership position, how would the people who report to you describe you? Would they say that they fear you? Or maybe they would say that they admire you. Do you trust the people who work for you? Do you trust the people you work for and with? Do you notice that when you don’t trust people, they’re leery of you as well? How often do all the team members feel that they’ve been an integral part of your company or project’s success because, as their leader, you inspired them to fully engage?

This week, try focusing on your leadership qualities and skills. Find out how much of the work is about you and how much is about the team. Be honest with yourself. Try moving out of your comfort zone by trusting people you’re not exactly sure about and see if it helps the relationship you have with them. I think we can all strive, as Lao Tzu said, to feel that sense of mutual success “When the works done right, with no fuss or boasting.”

Have a good week!

Kathleen

Kathleen Doyle-White
Pathfinders Coaching
(503) 296-9249

© Copyright 2009 Pathfinders Coaching, Scout Search, Inc., all rights reserved.

* Many thanks to Lyza Danger Gardner with Cloud Four for sending me the card and inspiring me to write this challenge. To see the card, click on this link: http://flickr.com/photos/lyza/3105948822/in/set-72157607176565799/.

The Joys of Volunteering

Good day team,

Once awhile in your career, you have a rare opportunity to work on an assignment that is life enhancing. When I was asked last month by the board of director’s at St. Mary’s Home for Boys in Beaverton, Oregon to help them find a new executive director, I knew it was just this kind of opportunity. But, I didn’t really understand how rare it was until I met with 15 of the courageous people who work at St. Mary’s last week to get a better idea of what they thought was needed for the director position and the kind of person they’d like to see in the job. But first, here’s a brief description about St. Mary’s.

Founded in 1889, St Mary’s offers residential treatment and services to boys at risk between the ages of 10 and 17. Treatment plans include individual and group therapy, counseling, training sessions, juvenile sex awareness program, and aftercare services. Physical, social, emotional, and spiritual programs are also conducted. Cognitive, behavioral, and relationship treatment approach is provided. The curriculum includes reading, language, computers, art, life skills, health, and physical education.

I cannot begin to explain all of the emotions I experienced while I was there this past week. I am still digesting much of what I saw and learned. But I did come away from the experience knowing how vitally important it is that St. Mary’s and other institutions like it exist and how much they need our support.

The staff members I met were very open and honest in our discussions and gave me more information than I expected. They also gave me the great privilege of having lunch with the boys and to attend a student’s graduation. What these children have survived is unspeakable. I honestly cannot imagine a world where the kinds of abuse and neglect these children experience exists. But it does happen and often, in our own communities. St. Mary’s embraces these children with safety, security, sensitivity and sanitation as their underlying values in practice and for most of these kids, it’s the first time in their lives they’ve had any experience of these four things, let alone 3 meals a day, a roof over their heads, and an education.

The statistics prove that these kids have a much greater chance for success when people on the outside volunteer to mentor them. It only requires about one hour a week, but it improves these kids lives forever. While I was there last week. some drama coaches were there volunteering to give the kids acting lessons; there was also a play writing workshop going on. All of these activities were conducted by local people volunteering their time and energy for the children. And, the kids just loved it. When I saw the joy on their faces at lunch time I knew that this kind of activity was essential to their healing and the importance of it was priceless.

As a coach, I see clients all the time who are trying to find some inspiration in their daily lives. They want to be happier or to move in a direction that gives them joy and abundance. They are often looking for more meaning in their lives. In that search, people try to find happiness by delving deeper and deeper into their own psychology. They work so hard to try and fix what’s wrong and then become narrowly focused and obsessed with themselves. This doesn’t bring any joy at all. As one client said to me recently, ‘ All of these thoughts about myself are driving me nuts and it’s all the same old stories, over and over again.”

One of the best remedies for this kind of psychological and emotional trap is to be of service to others. Your challenge this week is to serve someone by volunteering your time and/or energy on their behalf. It doesn’t mean you have to become an official volunteer; there are small ways in which each of us can serve others every day if we try to make that kind of service a priority. Perhaps you clean up after someone at work or set a goal to spend more time reading to your children each day. Maybe you do actually sign up for a mentoring program or to serve meals to the homeless. If you can spare some extra time during your week, investigate ways in which you can volunteer that time to benefit others. In Oregon we have the SMART reading program, Habitat for Humanity, Meals on Wheels, to name a few. Perhaps your company has a program that allows you to take some time from work to do volunteer work during the week. Whatever it is, find ways to broaden your emotional life and reap the rewards of serving others.

This past week I realized, yet again, the importance of extending my heart and hand to others. The world is very much in need of us and we are very much in need of experiencing the good we can bring to the world. Extending your loving kindness to others is a sure way to experience it in yourself. At the end of the day, isn’t that what life is all about?

Have a great week!

Kathleen

September 12, 2005

Good day Team, The coach’s challenge for the week is about the 8 attributes of supportive communication. Please see below. They speak for themselves. 8 Attributes of Supportive Communication � Problem oriented, not person oriented – focus on how problems and issues can be changed rather than on people and their characteristics (“How can we […]