and rapidly respond to critical opportunities. Evaluate all problems and solutions from different angles, involve stakeholders in solution formation, and experiments with a pilot before taking a project to the next level; looks beyond the obvious and doesn’t stop at the first answers; sought out by others for advice and solutions.
Roadblock – Is not open to criticism; gets upset and blames others for problems; Picks a side versus finding a path to the middle
In the span of a little over 24 hours we were with friends who have celebrated over 50 years together, and then other friends that were celebrating the marriage of their daughter. The latter was filled with other young people who met at a Christian Camp set in the mountains of Virginia near Roanoke. The outdoor celebration was perfect for any occasion… but particularly perfect in this very strange year.
Many of you don’t believe all these things happened, and I don’t blame you. Unlike now, you didn’t have a camera in your pocket to record video – but boy if I did… IBM was the Apple of the 80’s – growing faster than the US economy, without rival in the computer business, literally called Goliath.
The Moody Blues create music you cannot approach casually. Yes, they have amazing – well everything – but it forces me to really think — hard — wonder about things. Even the title of the albums put you in a different place – like today’s – To Our Children’s Children’s, Children. Those don’t exist for me – yet..
The clearest way to know you are in The Middle is you are taking fire from all “sides”. In politics, another native Texan, Jim Hightower, said it colorfully — “There’s nothing in The Middle of the Road other than Yellow Stripes and Dead Armadillos.”
I became aware of The Middle as a management concept when I was in charge of Product Management — a critical job for any company, but particularly for a software company. The idea that you can build “anything” is mostly true — and only limited by resources — which are mostly time and people. As such, everyone thinks it is easy to do what their own area needs —
As I turned out of my subdivision this morning, I came face to face with a car that was coming down the hill right at me… and of course, that meant I was coming uphill right at him. Luckily we had a “centerline” and with the road curving, what appeared to be a problem was resolved as we both stayed “on our side”. It occurred to me how much implicit trust is involved in The Middle.
It is a convenient coincidence that the “empower” words come in the order they are in. Yes, it is easier to make the acronym work, but these “middle” words tie together particularly well. That became clear a year or so back when I was talking with a partner who observed that I had lost my Joy. At first, I was a little taken aback, but as we talked through the assessment, she was right
Happy April Fools Day! If there was a holiday that I revere, it would be this one. As a natural cut-up and jokester, I often circle this day on the calendar for something fun. This year, it corresponds on the Faith calendar to a day called Maundy Thursday – one that I wasn’t really in tune with, the night of The Last Supper that you probably do know about. It is now observed as a fairly somber service where the church is stripped of all elements and hung with the darkness that would come with “Good” Friday…
In the Will Smith movie 15 years ago, we see a man working to pull himself through a difficult period of his life. Starting as a Stockbroker, he quickly falls into a series of bad outcomes, until he is clearly not “Happy”. As we watch this true story brought to life, there is a particular phase he observes again and again. “Thomas Jefferson… how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what?”
Your brain is an amazing invention, observing and integrating literally billions of bits of information every second. They measured the bandwidth of your eyes which is close to 9 GigaBytes a second. For reference, that amazing 4K TV you watch is about 25 MEGA bytes/second… so your eyes can actually send your brain 360 separate programs simultaneously. Use that when you get in trouble as I do for channel surfing. One they cannot do well is see a hot pan or in the dark, and in both cases, without other senses, you would get hurt… which is exactly the same in leadership.
Of all of the Values that most teams and leaders list, renewal is rarely on the list. Particularly the leaders who really “care” and talk about “servant leadership” and are those people you want to follow. They find it very hard to carve out time for the most important resource – themselves. As I start working with leaders, I realize that most of my real value is forcing them to spend an hour or so on… themselves. Sure I can bring some Value with my clever questions, listening, some observations, even some much-requested “advice”… but realistically… just getting them to focus on themselves is what I am paid to do now…
For as long as I can remember, I have been working – and not in a negative way. I love doing things, solving problems, creating things, particularly when they are complicated. As an executive I had to realize that making things EASY was actually WAY more important… and also, WAY more difficult. The way I would explain this to you in-person would be to draw a Venn diagram – which most of you won’t even remember from Geometry or Algebra. The idea is you have a circle, I have a circle. Where they overlap, we share… objectives, deliverables, targets, mission, etc. Easy with 2… but when organizations are large, the execution overlap becomes smaller and smaller… sometimes the Null Set…
Like most weeks, Friday’s wonder post is the easiest to figure out with both what I am going to say, and the musician that embodies that quality for the band. It is a rare treat that the story also aligns with the song title. And if you read these enough, you might guess the player I focus on the most is the Bass player – and this week you would be right. But I am already ahead of myself – one of my Values that is less helpful is being “Restless” – racing ahead and never being happy with where I am. It is what made me a great Youth worker at church, and an even better recruiter…
Today we observe exactly a year from when the Coronvirus became viscerally real. It had been...