One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting
their bad advice-though the whole house
began to tremble and you felt the old tug
at your ankles. “Mend my life!” each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers at the very foundations,
though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
but little by little, as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do-
determined to save the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver

Part Two of Don’t Trust the Narrator

I noticed that I love to tell stories about events that have happened in my life. My good friends roll their eyes when they hear that same story for the 10th time.  When I still have a “charge” on something I keep telling the story.  It dawned on me the stories may no longer be true. After a series of what I call the tsunami of events that washed over my family in the last few years, it would be easy and comfortable to slip back to that same old story.

“Every dime of my savings went to helping my teenage son overcome his substance abuse. I’m in debt because of him.”  And he is right back to his self destructive behavior. I’ve given everything and it’s thrown in my face. What’s his problem?”

“My wife can’t hold a boundary with him.  I always have to play the hard ass…”

The stories we continue to tell about ourselves or others becomes a label. An identity.  And it is a lot easier “label” people than to “let go” and see what is really happening.  Especially family.

The most powerful pull in human nature is to be congruent and consistent with the identity we have for ourselves. We must remain consistent to what is familiar. It is how we make sense of the world.

I return to the familiar patterns that I know. Like an old pair of slippers it’s comfortable. I know this place.  The anchors return me to that same story.  Without awareness, or a conscious act I will go on automatic pilot and live out of my old stories.

When we became parents, there was no help desk, no tech support, no user manual.. although I’m still looking!  I noticed that we are constantly being challenged by our kids stories or our interpretation of their stories, especially as they get older.

We all want the “best” for our children. But whose “best “ would that be?  Whose story are we telling?  Ours or theirs?

With my 16 year old son, I realized that I wasn’t really listening to him.  I was interpreting his story.  And we were not connecting.

It would have been easy to just put a label on him:  “teenagers, they are all the same..” Believe me, I think ( in my head) those thoughts all the time.  But those thoughts do not build any relationship with him.  Only by being present and “meeting him where he is” am I able to understand him.

Believe me, he still does things that piss me off.  But I have learned to appreciate him.  Something that was missing greatly in our household.

Our kids will all be gone one day.  We are simply their guides.  I hope I have guided him well.

A strong leader’s job is to reduce complexity. The management team’s job is to solve problems, create budgets and run an agenda.  The leader’s job is to include dissenting voices and challenge assumptions, but also be willing to have their own assumptions challenged. A strong leader encourages strong voices as well as quiet voices to contribute.  They surround themselves by experts smarter than themselves.  They are authentic, specific, and willing to take a stand on behalf of their team.

A weak leader rejects streamlined decision making and becomes more concerned about control than results.  They create complexity by  inserting their needs before the needs of the organizations.  They are insulated, talk to few people and are more concerned about being right than listening.  This mindset can be dangerous. In this type of organization rigorous thought is mocked.  Change is discouraged.  And anyone attempting to challenge the assumptions of the CEO is quickly removed.

Our entire identity and the way we see ourselves and how we move in the world is reflected through the filter of that story.

If someone attempts to interrupt or worse, ‘kill’ a person’s, story they meet with tremendous resistance because they are in effect, taking away that persons’ identity.   Without an identity they may not survive. It makes sense then to look at deconstructing stories so we understand them and are able to change and be flexible.
Organizations have stories too. They function as independent identities, assuming a personality, a style, a way of viewing itself and the way it desires to be viewed by the outside world. In essence, it has its’ own consciousness.

The same way we might look at deconstructing an individuals’ story, we can look at deconstructing organizational stories.  Just as an individual resists to maintain their identity, so do organizations. Organizations, like people, will do anything to be consistent with their identities.  And  individual stories make up the collective identity of the group.  Think of it as starting from the inside-out.

I had a client who saw himself as strictly a ‘Numbers Guy’. He valued data but not the people.  He missed the cultural aspects and failed to value the people and it nearly killed him.

If someone loses their job,  the old identity of being stable, steady, and reliable suddenly ceases to exist.  Without that old identity, uncertainty takes hold.  If this is all that is known then that person is in a life raft without a paddle.

There comes a time for most of us when an old story or identity just doesn’t serve us anymore. The result? You are thrown into uncertainty, fear, self doubt and anxiety. Because the old constructs don’t work in the new reality.  Understanding that fear, uncertainty, self-doubt and anxiety are often the signs of impending and positive change, can enable us to embrace these transitions more easily.

The nature of the work I do is to work in the gaps between personal and organizational transformation.  The stories you tell about yourself is your identity.  The stories your company tells about itself is its culture.  Where these two intersect is where magic happens.  We will do anything to be congruent with the story we have for ourselves. People who are incongruent are seen as untrustworthy, unreliable, shifty, even insane.  It is a powerful pull to be consistent with who we know to be.

By the end of the movie, I realized that the narrator was unreliable.  We just assumed his point of view was the nature of reality.  It wasn’t.  (I won’t spoil the ending if you haven’t seen it).

Here’s the crux:  We can’t always trust the narrators of our own stories.  We simply assume the narrator’s perspective is correct.  But we hang onto old identities and old stories that no longer serve us.  Its all we know.

Many times in my life, I’ve had a reality check to see if I was being pushed by my demons or pulled by my visions.  Sometimes the lines would get blurred.  It dawned on me, after watching this movie, that I had based my life on the assumption that I could always trust the narrator.   Just because I see the world in a particular way, what I am seeing must be real.  But what if the narrator is unreliable?

Why shouldn’t we trust our own senses?  We are the narrators of our own stories and we must assume that “seeing is believing”.  But that notion is not necessarily true, since “seeing” in the Buddhist sense is an art not a science.  It takes practice to really “see” without filters to what is so.

My 16 year old son, Tobin, fell into a terrible substance abuse habit and a sociopathic tendency to lie about everything he did.  I saw my son as irresponsible, immature, incapable of taking care of himself and completely untrustworthy.  I told him I did stupid shit when I was a kid, but he did really, really stupid shit.  My younger son did battle with leukemia and the few years we were in and out of hospitals dealing with his illness, Tobin got lost in the shuffle.

I saw in him, teenage arrogance and a white kid who thought he was a black rapper.  I didn’t understand him.  The narrator told me to do all the things that one does in these situations:  I spent over $100k sending him to therapists, wilderness programs, boarding schools, outpatient clinics, AA meetings, and support groups.  I borrowed money that I did not have to give to my son, who seemingly did not care.

I sent him away in his worst time to a wilderness program when he was just 14.  This was the first picture I saw of him in 7 weeks.  I burst into tears.  Nothing was working.  What was I doing?

It was my son and I who watched this movie together.  And it suddenly dawned on me: I was the unreliable narrator of my own story about the relationship with my son.  If I couldn’t trust the narrator, then the story may not be true. I needed to deconstruct the story with the assumption of a false narrator. I listened to Tobin tell me what it was like to be alone in a boarding school with all boys who picked on him constantly.  I realized that he was suffering and that was why he was self medicating.  I was deeply moved by his tears I had not seen before.

I am changing my entire business practice, this blog being a part of it, to see if I can come off the road and be with my son.  He needs me.  He is 16 and I have two years left.  I will not let this pass.  The reason nothing worked is that my son is an introvert and he was in pain. It doesn’t discount all the stupid shit he did.  He is still on a very short leash.  But slowly, over time I am beginning to make a new connection.

And no matter how I’m feeling, especially when I’m in reaction, when I am stressed, when I am angry and when I am, myself, in survival I have learned to never assume the narrator is all that reliable.  So I continually check in to discover: Who’s story am I telling right now?

Don’t trust the narrator.

The Integrators to want to make everybody happy and build consensus. They like to have team-building exercises, lots of meetings and they are always asking “Who?” “Who else is involved in this project?” “Whom can we bring in?” “Who does/doesn’t like our approach?” “Who else is involved?”

They intensely dislike conflict because an I covets the relationship. Any kind of conflict, especially emotional conflict, disconnects the I from that relationship. So in their communication style they tend to be very passive-aggressive, never communicating directly, but always in a round-about way, to make sure they never offend the person they are talking to.

Managing Staff

An integrator tends to hire people that they, simply, ‘like’. People who are social and friendly and warm- other I’s just like them. They overlook things like skills, techniques and competencies. They want to be social and they want to be included.Their subordinates  are promoted if they are seen by the I’s as well liked by others. If the Integrator likes the subordinate, that, too, favors a promotion in a company.

What subordinates get praised for by an I, is making others feel good. In large companies with lots of employees, high I’s tend to be extremely political. They always know what everyone is thinking and feeling and they seem to rise up the corporate ladder. Like Teflon, everything rolls off their back. They’re very political animals and they tend to have their people out as spies looking for who is saying what, to whom and which angle they should take to move themselves up the corporate ladder.

Communication Style

The I’s communication style tends to be long-winded with lots of words. They tend to talk so much, they forget where they end and others begin. They tend to talk to seek the connection rather than to make a point. They tend to hesitate when making decisions because they always wonder, who will NOT like their decision. In trying to make everybody happy, they end up making nobody happy and sometimes things just don’t get done.

Leadership Style

Because they don’t like conflict, they tend to have a laissez-faire type of management style and they tend to allow others to “Run with the ball” so, to speak. Quite often, in a large, high-I organization, strong personalities and narcissists tend to dominate at lower levels taking over and filling a vacuum where the I does not want to make a stand and create clear boundaries.

The Integrator has a problem with boundaries. They don’t like to create clear boundaries because their boundaries are vague, themselves. So their job descriptions for their subordinates tend to be very loosey-goosey. As a result, the stronger employees tend to take over the weaker employees and there is great dysfunction in a lot of organizations run by high I’s. Their training practices tend to be very loose, they typically aren’t structured and basically, they like to spend time with new subordinates. Having them follow them around and creating new experiences for them to learn by.

The way an Integrator learns is by experiencing something first and they expect their subordinates to have that experience, as well. Unfortunately, many times they have not given the subordinates enough information to know what they are doing right and wrong. Their subordinates are quite often confused about what their job should and should not be.

Managing Change

They like change as long as everybody is on-board. They want to encourage the team to get along and to be responsive to change. They encourage change as long as it means something to people in the company. Change for change’s sake is not something that high I’s would like.

What will you do with the time you have left?  Whose life have you touched?  Who is incredibly proud of you?

No matter whether a change is of major proportions or is small, the change manager must anticipate that people are going to find reasons to resist. However, those that can work through difficult times will find themselves in a much healthier, productive, and prosperous place at the other end.

It is a basic tenet of human behavior that any belief or value that has been previously successful in meeting needs will resist change. Even if there are better alternatives to meet those needs.

Some of the things people feel are at risk during the change process:

• Security

• Money

• Freedom

• Pride

• Responsibility

• Authority

• Status

Whenever a change is perceived as creating a threat to someone having their needs met, the more likely resistance will occur.  When they perceive that they can no longer maintain the status quo (especially if it was working for them) they will align with others and attack the perceived threat – whether from the inside or the outside.  Common forms of resistance:

• Denial

• Drama

• Gossip

• Vindictiveness

• Disconnection

• Outright sabotage

Other common factors that can cause people to resist change:

• Change is not needed.  The status quo is working fine.

• The proposed change does more harm than good.

• Lack of respect for the person responsible for the change.

•  Objection to the way the change is being implemented.

•  Negative attitude toward the organization or the leader prior to the change.

•No opportunity to have input into the change process.

•Change is perceived as implying personal criticism.

•Change simply adds more work and confusion.

•Change requires more effort than the status quo.

•Bad timing for any change.

For a company to grow and thrive each of these must be present.  They are always determined by the people who create the company’s direction.

The PRODUCER.  Also known as the Driver.  Producer energy is structured,  moves quickly and is linear, logical and problem solving.  This energy is focused on immediate results. Drivers are extroverts and task oriented.
This is the energy of being FUNCTIONAL. WHAT to do.

The ADMINISTRATOR.  Administrator energy moves at a glacial pace.  This energy consumes data at tremendous rate. Administrators are highly structured, very systemic and want to mitigate all risk. They are introverts and task oriented.
This is the energy of being SYSTEMIC. HOW to do it.

The ENTREPRENEUR.   Entrepreneur energy is big picture, people oriented, fast moving, creative, restless energy. They are extroverts and people oriented.
This is the energy of being PROACTIVE.  WHY is it being done.

The INTEGRATOR. Integrator energy moves fast and talks fast.  They are extroverts and people oriented.
This is the energy of being HUMAN.  WHO is doing it.

The PRAGMATIST. Also known as the Diplomat. Pragmatist energy is steady, easy going, slow paced, routine oriented, grounded energy. They are introverts and people oriented.
This is the energy of being REALISTIC.  The HABIT of doing it.

BOOTING UP: Making Decisions in a Paradox.

You’re familiar with the expression: “booting up” your computer. The use of this phrase goes back to the early days of computing, but its’ origins lie in the old expression “lift yourself up by your bootstraps”. In the early days of computer programming, before you could load a program into a computer, you had to first load the program loader.

It’s a perfect illustration of the Bootstrap Paradox: How do you get a program into a computer for the first time if the first program you want to load is the program that loads other programs?

This leads naturally to the question: How do we “bootstrap” ourSelves? We create the terms – like bootstrap, but where does it all start? Who created the program that loads us? Our essence? How we think and operate and deal with challenges? It’s simple: live in the paradox.

The definition of paradox:
1. A seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true or
2. An assertion that is essentially self-contradictory.

Being a business owner or a CEO has always been a paradox between Dreams and Security. Between Identity and Relationships.
Owners and CEO’s have always lived in this space; you could almost say they’re defined by it. In our current economy and with all the uncertainty in the market, it’s as if the lid has been lifted and we’re all feeling exposed. There’s no hiding.

Fear is rampant – everyone feels it to some degree. While some people can do well in this place, even thrive, for others, it brings out their deepest fears, their darkest wounds. Living in a paradox like this can be consuming. It is useless to keep fighting for certainty when it only exists in the mind. That means there’s only the conversation: how much uncertainty can you live with?

Let’s face it: this is the new economy and no matter how you look at it, we’re all operating in it. Focus on the paradox itself instead of analyzing how we got here. Accept the contradictory spaces and deal with the Bootstrap.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XGJq8wrw5I[/youtube]