Ideals in Motion

Appreciation – The Secret Ingredient to Sustainable Success

2009-06-09T22:29:26-07:00

I was working with a CEO of a billion dollar plus company the other day and he asked me what could be done in today’s extremely difficult macro environment to keep his executive team from burning out. I’ve thought a lot about that question and, while there is no silver bullet, I do think that the answer lies in how the culture of the company is designed to support and reward extraordinary effort.

While culture is complex and is made up of many components the simple definition of what it is can be summed up by saying that it’s how we do what we do to get things done. In the doing – particularly in a highly stressed environment – there is definitely a feeling of being used. Used in the sense that energy is being expended, time is being devoted, sacrifices are being made and other demands are taking priority over personal desires. If my being used in the pursuit of the organization’s goals, objectives and possibly its very survival is felt to be taken for granted there will be a problem.

Burn out is not a consequence of working hard, working long hours, or of lack of being “out of balance”. Burn out is the result of extended time spent doing without connection to meaning. If what I’m doing – what I’m being used for – is not recognized as being meaningful I will have a problem sustaining it.

Appreciation keeps me connected to meaning. Appreciation that is genuine. Appreciation that is personal. Appreciation answers the question “What is the difference you bring that makes a difference?” The focus of this question is an explicit recognition of the way(s) that your actions have had impact and have made our lives better. It includes as well a recognition of what it took for you to so. It’s different than a simple acknowledgement that recognizes that you’re a contributor and are having impact. Appreciation includes speaking not only the what that you provided…it also includes an explicit citation of what it must have taken in order for you to do so (i.e., “organizing this offsite for the team has made it possible for us to jell around this issue in ways we couldn’t otherwise have done. And, I recognize that making this happen was a significant political risk that took a fair amount of courage in this fiscally constrained environment”. This difference is crucial.

Many organizational cultures practice acknowledgment in the form of a simple “thank you” when someone does something that goes beyond an expected minimum. Appreciation takes this to deeper and very personal level. It’s because it’s personal that it makes a difference. Taking it to a personal level is what makes it meaningful. And, it’s because it’s personal that it’s not part of most organizational cultures. Learning to authentically and consistently practice appreciation keeps people engaged. And engaged employees do not burn out.

The Fifth Competency - Inclusion

2009-05-19T07:33:00-07:00

After the game, the king and pawn go into the same box. ~Italian Proverb

The final competency necessary for sustaining success in life is the competency of inclusion. This competency is all about my ability to develop, tap into and utilize the power of social networks. Research consistently demonstrates that the value and the power of social networks are irrefutable in terms of enabling change. When I'm looking at starting over – sustaining success in life – it’s crucial to realize that I'm not going to do it by myself. I have to develop the competency to include others in meaningful ways that support what I'm attempting to achieve. Included in this competency is the ability to develop and nurture effective networks that impact and influence the various core domains of my life - professional, physical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional.

These networks will often be comprised of different people. Therefore, a key question to consider when developing the competency of inclusion focuses on the effectiveness of my ability to deliberately create and sustain high quality relationships over time with a wide variety of different people. Each of us and each of our lives come to be defined by our relationships, the quality of our social networks and our ability to utilize them well.

Sustaining success in life is a team sport.

The Fourth Competency - Practice, Practice, Practice

2009-05-15T23:21:15-07:00

We learn by practice.

Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. ~ Martha Graham

The fourth competency is practice. Developing the competency of Discernment (as well as the other competencies) doesn't happen automatically, I have to practice this. There is an old phrase that suggests that practice makes perfect. We're not after perfection here, and I actually don't believe that practice does make perfect. I think that practice makes habits. This is the value of intentional practices and intentional practices are where success in life is built. I am continuously practicing and thus the question is what kinds of habits have I developed? The habits in my life will either support where I want to go or will inhibit where I want to go and may have become stumbling blocks in and of themselves. When I'm looking at practices and the development of mindful, intentional practices this is a challenging competency because it requires a high state of awareness and discipline. Is what I'm practicing on a daily basis going to enable what it is that I'd like to have from a behavioral standpoint, from an attitudinal standpoint and from an experience of life standpoint? When it comes to developing intentional practices I’ve found it very useful to keep in mind that the way I do anything is the way that I do everything. Do my practices provide me the ground from where I may be able to connect more effectively with others in a way that propels me to what it is that I want in my life?

Discernment - The Third Competency

2009-05-10T18:47:45-07:00

“The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.”

~ David Bohm

The third competency, discernment, has its roots in a specific Buddhist tradition that involves mindfulness and is oriented around four levels of awareness . It is essentially a way of understanding how our perceptions of the events in life actually conspire and are structured to impact what it is that we’re trying to do. The four levels of awareness are:

Non-distinction
Distinction
Evaluation
Judgment

The base level is judgment. When I'm looking at understanding the competency of discernment, one way that I can look at life is through the filter, or the lens of judgment. This entails seeing things and reacting to my world as if there is either a right or a wrong, or a good and bad in play. It's pretty black and white. As the word judgment would imply there is a values assessment that is made that comes back to right, wrong, good, or bad. Judgment is always used as a way of validating an existing belief system. In the extreme this can be paralyzing as well as exclusionary as there is a polarizing dynamic inherent in judgment. Obviously judgment can be useful as a values clarification tool and as a guidance mechanism for behavior. And, it's important to understand that it’s a first level position.

The second level is evaluation. Evaluation is a little different from judgment in the sense that it's about orienting my world and life views so that I look for value. It's not that I'm looking with the intent of determining whether something is consistent with my beliefs and is therefore good, bad, right, or wrong. Rather, I'm looking for the value in the event. The way I'm defining value is; in what ways can what I'm viewing be utilized? I'm looking for how it can be of value, how it can be useful and of service to something that, ideally, I've identified as being meaningful for me to participate in. The second question that accompanies evaluation is focused on my intended response to an event. Is what I'm about to do generative? The question is about not whether it’s good or bad, right or wrong but rather is it adding value or taking value away from what it is that I'm trying to have happen – both for myself and for others. There’s a quality to evaluation that is very different from judgment, it's got a much wider spectrum to it that is far more enabling.

Then we to the third level which is distinction. Distinction is the process of suspending both judgment and evaluation and just observing and noticing life’s events and contents without assigning meaning to them. It's literally an observational state that puts me in the position of actually being a neutral observer. Being in such a neutral position so as to notice distinctions without judgment or evaluation is a practice that expands my overall awareness. The value in this is that an increase in awareness increases my choice making capacity. I am now in a position that, from a resource and capacity standpoint (there are more choices) and from a competency standpoint, literally frees me up to potentially make different kinds of choices than I’ve made before.

The last level is non-distinction. I’ll link this back to the Buddhist conversation around enlightenment. Non-distinction is where I'm approaching all things with a sense of unity and oneness, I and it are not separate. So we don't generally go into a lot of conversation about this with our clients as attaining this level is often a lifetime’s (maybe more) pursuit. And, it is an extremely exalted level of viewing the way the world is structured.

When working with our clients from a competency building standpoint our focus is on the areas of evaluation and distinction. By developing the practice of learning how to evaluate effectively and being able to move into an observational orientation that allows for noticing distinctions that they haven't been previously aware they are better positioned to have access to resources that weren't noticed before. Starting over becomes a process of developing those underutilized resources. This is about intentionality and mindfulness.

Courage - The Second Competency

2009-05-05T12:45:15-07:00

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear. ~ Ambrose Redmoon

The second competency for sustaining success in life is courage, and when you consider courage within the context of both letting go and learning anew, I believe that thinking of courage as a competency that can be developed makes imminent sense. To be willing to let go of something that I'm comfortable with, to let go of something that has worked historically for me, there has to be a certain amount of courage there. To trust the process, to be willing to step off the cliff so to speak and leap into that void of no guarantees is courageous. For adults in particular learning is a challenge requiring courage primarily because of our need for certainty in life. Most adults detest the feeling of being a beginner that is part of learning. I've got four grandkids and I watch how they learn and how they absolutely revel in the learning process itself. What they don't have is something that has worked before, so they are willing to go out and explore and experiment. As we become adults, we develop models for how to be successful when we get into our organizations, and for when we get into really living our lives. Based on these models we begin to do things, we're successful with them, and we try to replicate those over and over and over again, and learning has stopped. We become preoccupied with questions of right and wrong or good and bad. These questions are always asked within the context of our success models. Among the things that enable the development of courage are different kinds of questions. Questions like “is what I'm doing today working or not working?” This is a different type of question than one oriented around right/wrong or good/bad. If it's not working then I have the opportunity to do something different. But it will often mean letting go of my historic success model and that is a huge challenge for a lot of folks. In this sense courage has less to do with bravery and far more to do with willingness to learn as a beginner.

Self Awareness - the foundational competency

2009-05-01T21:12:34-07:00

The first of five competencies necessary to be developed for sustainable success is self awareness. I consider this to be the foundational competency. And for those who would argue 'I know myself completely', I refer them to Oscar Wilde's statement of: "Only the shallow think they know themselves!" Am I aware of what it is that I'm doing from the standpoint of knowing why it matters to me? Why does this matter, what will be different as a consequence of me taking this action? Is that valued and valuable and does it support the sense that I was used well and that my life's energy, which is non-renewable resource, was actually spent in a wise way? Do I have the necessary resources to go to the next level? Am I using my resources wisely?

As you may have discerned there is a lot of questioning that comprises self awareness – Socrates had it right when he said that the “unexamined life isn’t worth living”. This is where inner strength is discovered. Self awareness is an enormously important competency, and is truly one of the core competencies that often most needs to be developed.

Being Used Well...

2009-04-28T13:36:47-07:00

I think that success is ultimately about the dual experiences of both mattering and fulfillment. The bottom line--I think the question that determines if I'm successful in life or not or successful in any endeavor is “was I used well”? Were we used well? “Used well” is a criteria that assess both did I matter as well am I fulfilled as a consequence of what I’ve done. So being used well is what we track for. Success is sustainable in the sense that it happens when I am in the process of continuously starting over in service of answering the question was I (or were we) used well by whatever endeavor we were involved with.

More on Sustaining Success...

2009-04-09T14:41:09-07:00

Why even consider "starting over"? Simply answered, we have no choice given the incredible (and accelerating) rate of change we are living with today.

This video really captures this notion:

Sustaining Success

2009-03-12T20:44:40-07:00

Relative to sustaining success over a lifetime I've defined sustainability in previous posts as being about developing the competencies necessary in order to continuously start over. In a chapter I've recently written for a new anthology with Steven Covey, Ken Blanchard and Brian Tracy entitled Discover Your Inner Strength I go into some detail about these core competencies. In this and subsequent posts I want to offer these competencies up for your consideration. Let me know what you think.

One thing that I've experienced to be true is that before I can begin considering what competencies to develop I have to consider my and/or my organization's capacity to develop. Capacity has to do with the breadth and depth of resources I have available such as energy, skills, education, emotional intelligence, and time view to name just a few. It's important to understand that these (and other) resources are the enablers of the core competencies. While I obviously do not need an infinitely deep and broad capacity "pool" I do need some capacity in order to develop. The (not inconsequential) good news is that from wherever I begin, capacity is expanded as I work on developing the sustainability competencies.

The five core competencies necessary for a sustainably successful life are:

Self-awareness
Courage
Discernment
Practice
Inclusion

In upcoming posts I'll write about each of these competencies one at a time and expand upon it with practical examples of development strategies that are relevant to both individuals and organizations. I look forward to your comments as I open up this dialog.

The downside of competition.

2009-03-02T10:11:53-08:00

I've been reading an interesting book by Alfie Kohn about the price of competition (No Contest: The Case Against Competition - Why we lose in our race to win). A quick summary of the the book essentially is that competition ultimately reduces or, at best, doesn't grow the size of the pie (hence the reference to zero sum outcomes). Ultimately, it seems to me that the competitive state is predicated on a lack of systemic awareness.

We are all part of a large, integrated, interdependent system. It is literally impossible for me to take an action and not have that action have some impact on other parts of the system. And, depending on the depth of my lack of systemic awareness, I'm very likely to not have any significant awareness whatsoever of the end impact of my actions. It's the illusion of separateness that dooms competition as a viable strategy for long term growth and sustainable success.

A simple story illustrates this (my thanks to my good friend Terry Tillman for sending this to me):

Growing Good Corn

There was a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the stat fair where it won a blue ribbon. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it.

The rporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. "How can you afford to share your bes seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?" the reporter asked.

"Why sir," said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn."

He is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor's corn also improves.

So it is in other dimensions. Those who choose to be at peace must help their neighbors be at peace. Those who choose to live well must help others to live well, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.

The lesson for each of us is this: if we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbors grow good corn.

Author Unknown

We really only ever have two choices...

2009-02-26T21:37:50-08:00

People, organizations, nations and societies move and change only when one of two conditions exist. Condition one is that in which where we currently find ourselves is too unpleasant to remain and moving away is the only option we recognize; and condition two is when we have an idea or picture of where we'd like to be that is so compelling that we can't not move towards it. Absent one of these conditions nothing changes. And, the most typical is the first condition. However, the two are not equal in terms of the quality of the movement created.

Moving because where we are is too unpleasant only requires that we leave. The direction is irrelevant as long as it is away from what we fear or no longer want. The problems inherent in this strategy are numerous indeed - and not the least of these is that we will likely look up when the discomfort is gone and discover that we are no closer to a fulfilling future than we were when we started.

Moving because we are so compelled by the promise contained in the ideal represented by a possible future is different - it has direction. It calls on and to the best in us. It is inclusive and aspirational. It is enabling and it is this quality that others may confuse with courage.

...and the pursuit of happiness.

2009-02-13T12:24:21-08:00

All people (it can legitimately be assumed) want to be happy. This is such a fundamental desire that Thomas Jefferson included it in the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

"We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

This phrase is based on the writings of the English writer John Locke, who expressed that "no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions. ( Locke, John (1690). Two Treatises of Government)"

A point of view worth considering is that it's the pursuit of happiness in the contemporary understanding of the word pursuit (i.e., to pursue or chase after) that is the source of much frustration and disillusionment for many people today.

An early judicial opinion, Butchers' Union Co. v. Crescent City Co., 111 U.S. 746 (1883), considered Jefferson's phrase in the Declaration of Independence to refer to one's economic vocation of choice rather than the more transient search for emotional fulfillment. U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Johnson Field, in his concurring opinion to Associate Justice Samuel Freeman Miller's opinion, wrote:

"Among these inalienable rights, as proclaimed in that great document, is the right of men to pursue their happiness, by which is meant the right to pursue any lawful business or vocation, in any manner not inconsistent with the equal rights of others, which may increase their prosperity or develop their faculties, so as to give to them their highest enjoyment."

For many, our contemporary understanding of the meaning of pursuit puts happiness outside of ourselves; it positions it as something to be attained; and, when placed within the context of the Declaration of Independence's "unalienable rights" language, it's easy to infer that we are entitled to happiness.

Using the original meaning of the word, pursuit means practice - as in the right to practice one's vocation. Happiness is not a right that is owed me, I am entitled to nothing other than the freedom to practice a vocation of my choosing. If that should result in me feeling happy so much the better.

Practice. What is it that, by practicing it on a daily basis, will result in my being happy - even fulfilled - in my life? Great question to ask myself. And, it places the responsibility for being happy in my life squarely where it belongs - on me.

Never Waste a Good Crisis

2009-02-11T01:16:49-08:00

Someone once said to me that it's far easier to talk about values than it is to live them. In times of crisis the values we've practiced and lived for years come to the forefront. Simply put, if we haven't been walking our talk a crisis will definitely illuminate a naked emperor. If I am truly intent on having my ideals be in motion a crisis can show me where I most need next to work.

I am currently working with a client company that for years has talked about caring about their customer's experience - how the customer feels about themselves when using their product and, of course, how their customer feels about their products and them as a company. As a result they have built a solid core of very loyal customers. Nothing particularly unusual in this except... In this current economic crisis they are, with great intention, looking at where they have been missing the mark. And, they are doing it in accordance with a set of internal values they have been practicing - key amongst them being Respect. This is helping ensure that there is no blaming for past misses. They have done the requisite cost cutting, have had painful layoffs and endured jarring restructuring. And they have done this with as much respect as they could bring to bear. The current economic crisis has illuminated both where they have been doing well and where there is room for improvement - internally and externally. They are literally defining their next opportunities as they make difficult choices that are in alignment with what they say is important.

Approached as an opportunity, with intention and mindfulness, a crisis can bring out the best in us. While there are never any guarantees in life, how we deal with crisis puts us in a far better position to come out the other side ready to thrive and grow.

Why is Leadership Transformational?

2009-01-29T22:16:50-08:00

In order to answer the question we need to revisit a definition of both leader and leadership that I've mentioned in previous postings. Simply, a leader is someone who causes movement in a system. By definition, this suggests that everyone is a leader because it is literally impossible not to cause some movement when I enter any system. This is important to understand because this definition moves one away from any questioning of "am I a leader?" to the question of "am I effective as a leader?" The activity of leadership is the answer to this question. Leadership effectiveness is about creating coordinated movement that produces the action required to get the result I want. The focus on creating coordinated movement is what makes leadership transformational.

Creating or causing coordinated movement in and with others is a transformational process. It is transformational because it requires of me and of the others a continual reassessment of what is working and what is not working. Transformation is about change - sometimes subtle and sometimes dramatic. It occurs when there is continual reassessment of progress within the context of is it working/not working. That is the magic of the process. Movement stops when the assessment context is one of right/wrong. These are polar opposite positions that invite conflict, rigidity and stagnation. When one party insists on being right there is little room for coordinated movement. By simply assessing within the context of is this working/not working I put myself in the position to lead a change - to transform - myself, the environment, the culture, and just possibly the planet.

Transformational Leadership Council

2009-01-28T05:27:36-08:00

I'm currently at the semi-annual gathering of the Transformational Leadership Council. Founded by Chicken Soup for the Soul author Jack Canfield, members include transformational leaders and teachers from around the world. Our membership rolls include folks regularly seen on Oprah, best selling authors, founders of social movements such as the Pachemama Alliance, Emmy and Grammy nominees and winners, and extraordinary leaders doing seminal work in many other fields (brain and mind research, conflict resolution, culture design, media convergence, spirituality and holistic body work to name just a few).

Some of the themes explored this week will provide the raw material for a number of forthcoming posts and I begin by addressing a core question: Why is leadership transformational?

The Challenge of Sustainable Success

2008-12-08T16:21:31-08:00

I just finished working with a group of 63 Chinese business people in Kunming, China. One of the major points of focus during our time together concerned the question of how do we sustain business success in an economic climate such as the one we are experiencing today.

I've addressed this notion of sustainability in earlier postings and think it's worth revisiting. I've come to define sustainable success as the process of developing the capacity to continuously start over. This has significant implications for management and leadership in an organization. The capacity to start over that I reference applies fundamentally to ensuring that the organization's culture is adaptable. Particularly in terms of being able to deliberately and intentionally deal with the disrupting questions of "What do we hold on to"? "What do we let go of"? or "What do we take on"?

Each of these questions will produce jarring change and require great courage. Of course, the meta contextual question that holds all three is "For the sake of what"? are we doing any of this in the first place. This has to be absolutely clear and the answer is never about just making money or surviving.

And now the work begins...

2008-11-04T16:58:27-08:00

"And now the work begins," wrote Dr. Maya Angelou in "Commencement Address."

With President Bush's approval rating at a historical low and a likely voting split (according to polls) in the neighborhood of 53/47 any outcome in this year's Presidential election will ensure that our starting point for "and now the work begins" will be at a level above what we currently have - we're pretty much guaranteed that, whoever wins the Presidency, they will start out with at least double the approval rating of our current President.

The challenge for whoever becomes President will be to forge tolerance and coherence across an ideological divide created by small minds. We, as a people, became great because we have always found ways to keep our grand ideals in motion. The ideals that our country were founded upon (ideals of tolerance, freedom of choice, curiosity, adventure and equality) became the foundation that allowed for a melting pot of cultures and ethnicity to give rise to the greatest country the world has know.

We have nothing to fear from grand ideals that call out the best in us. And now the work begins is a clarion call to return to our grand ideals before we collapse under the weight of divisiveness.

Company Culture & The Individual's Role

2008-09-11T15:52:18-07:00

An organization is simply a collection of individuals that are in relationship...with one another, with their jobs, with their expectations, and with themselves. Each individual brings to these varied relationships their own values, dreams, taboos and personalities. Combined, these comprise the organization's culture. In a very literal sense there is no company culture absent the unique individual culture that is each person.

In most organizations people are recruited (onto teams or into the organization) based on what they can do. They are almost always fired for who they are - for the lack of fit between the individual culture they "are" and the culture of the organization they are trying to fit into.

This is important to note for a variety of reasons. "Designing" the organization's culture is an activity leaders often overlook at their peril. Recruiting, succession planning, implementation of strategic plans, team functioning, sustainable success, competitive positions and organizational resilience are all dramatically impacted by culture.

While a strong organizational culture can be like a self cleaning oven, "poor fits" may also be an indication that the culture of the organization needs to be examined. As with all complex living things (and an organization is both complex and "alive") the greater the mindfulness in designing for the future the greater the likelihood for success. What are the attributes of the ideal culture that will enable your company to be successful in the near to mid term? How do you design this culture? What kind of people will create that kind of culture? How are they different from the kinds of people you have typically hired?

On The Mindless Menace of Violence

2008-06-06T23:04:39-07:00

Today is the 4oth anniversary of Bobby Kennedy's assassination. These words from one of his finest speeches couldn't be more timely than they are in today's climate.

On the Mindless Menace of Violence

Robert F. Kennedy

City Club of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio
April 5, 1968

"This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.

It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.

Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr’s cause has ever been stilled by an assassin’s bullet.

No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.

Whenever any American’s life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.

“Among free men,” said Abraham Lincoln, “there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs.”

Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.

Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.

Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.

For there is another kind of violence, slower but just as deadly destructive as the shot or the bomb in the night. This is the violence of institutions; indifference and inaction and slow decay. This is the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. This is the slow destruction of a child by hunger, and schools without books and homes without heat in the winter.

This is the breaking of a man’s spirit by denying him the chance to stand as a father and as a man among other men. And this too afflicts us all.

I have not come here to propose a set of specific remedies nor is there a single set. For a broad and adequate outline we know what must be done. When you teach a man to hate and fear his brother, when you teach that he is a lesser man because of his color or his beliefs or the policies he pursues, when you teach that those who differ from you threaten your freedom or your job or your family, then you also learn to confront others not as fellow citizens but as enemies, to be met not with cooperation but with conquest; to be subjugated and mastered.

We learn, at the last, to look at our brothers as aliens, men with whom we share a city, but not a community; men bound to us in common dwelling, but not in common effort. We learn to share only a common fear, only a common desire to retreat from each other, only a common impulse to meet disagreement with force. For all this, there are no final answers.

Yet we know what we must do. It is to achieve true justice among our fellow citizens. The question is not what programs we should seek to enact. The question is whether we can find in our own midst and in our own hearts that leadership of humane purpose that will recognize the terrible truths of our existence.

We must admit the vanity of our false distinctions among men and learn to find our own advancement in the search for the advancement of others. We must admit in ourselves that our own children’s future cannot be built on the misfortunes of others. We must recognize that this short life can neither be ennobled or enriched by hatred or revenge.

Our lives on this planet are too short and the work to be done too great to let this spirit flourish any longer in our land. Of course we cannot vanquish it with a program, nor with a resolution.

But we can perhaps remember, if only for a time, that those who live with us are our brothers, that they share with us the same short moment of life; that they seek, as do we, nothing but the chance to live out their lives in purpose and in happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.

Surely, this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us as fellow men, and surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen once again."

The 4 Levels of Life...

2008-06-04T16:54:16-07:00

I was doing some research today and came across something I used a number of years ago with a client to help them appreciate some of the distinctions we were working towards. A very abbreviated summary holds that, as a basic framework, we can approach life/work/reality from a number of defined orientations. This notion is drawn from the Buddhist's 4 levels of life:

Judgment - seeing things and reacting to my world as if there is a right/wrong, good/bad in play.
Evaluation - orienting my world and life view so that I look for value. Simply, in what ways can what I'm viewing be utilized (how is it of value) and is what I'm about to do additive or generative (not good or bad but useful to myself and others).
Distinction - seeing and noticing life's events and content without judgment or evaluation.
Non-distinction - approaching all with a sense of unity and oneness - I and "it" are not separate.

It's our position that we are most effective at our business and work when we approach both from the dual orientations of evaluation and distinction. We also hold that this dual approach is one key to true sustainability (developing the capacity to continuously start over).