Continued from my last week’s post, Double, double toil and trouble Part #1

My last post described a crisis situation my command faced in Bahrain. It was 2002, and we had been warned that tens of thousands of angry demonstrators were heading our way, with the objective apparently of overrunning us.

The subject of the post was about how the Navy has taught me, among other things, to manage through a crisis. As I wrote last week, “it’s a skill that has come in handy in my civilian career. From swiftly changing market conditions to frivolous lawsuits, from irrational competitors to even less rational bloggers whose journalistic integrity would make Rita Skeeter blush … operating in an entrepreneurial environment sometimes feels like brief moments of sanity in an otherwise ultra-manic universe.”

But back to that day in 2002… in my last post I broke off just as, at the time, I was beginning to think we were in a true no-win scenario, that we might not actually get out of it unscathed. Or as we say in the service, we were on the verge of being in “a world of hurt.”

Watching how people reacted to all this was very interesting (I mean, in retrospect). Some folks fared badly. I remember one officer – not from my command (nor my branch of service I’ll add), and I won’t describe him further lest he someday read this – who was on the verge of real panic. He was planning to “commandeer” a vehicle and make a dash for it. He asked me if I wanted to come, as I caught him rifling through a cabinet for truck keys. And I’ll admit, it was tempting – staying where we were was beginning to feel like a death sentence. But I declined. Whatever the outcome, I understood that it was my duty to be there. It may have sucked, but I had volunteered for serving in the first place … abandoning that commitment wasn’t an option.

It was pretty much precisely at this moment that my Commanding Officer (CO) arrived on the scene. He didn’t need to come; he had left the safety of the main base to get there, and with the evacuation order in place and the Marines already deployed, he could very much have justified staying where he was. But he didn’t. Moreover, he would not have stayed away in a million years – we were “his people”, and he would have moved heaven and earth to be there and share the consequences with us.

This represents a phenomenon that I find is rarely understood by the “outside world” (i.e., those who haven’t served). When you have the privilege and responsibility to be a leader in the military, you learn quickly that it is all about your team, about your people. As a (different) Commanding Officer I once had used to say frequently, “take care of your people, and they will take care of you.” The bond you develop with your team, the sense of commitment to their safety and well being, goes far, far beyond what occurs in nearly any civilian counterpart scenario.

Back to my CO in Bahrain: not only did he come to join us at that moment, but he projected a vision of calm despite the overwhelming tension and impending violence. I’ll never forget the easy command he seemed to have of the situation … how he got the specwar commander to stand down his defensive perimeter and put away his heavy weapons, and yield the force protection mandate to the Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team Marines with their non-lethal gear. How he got everyone aligned to complete the lock-down with order and discipline. How he ensured that we had at least a fighting chance to egress the area once our work was done and the violence had commenced.

It is a fair statement that without his leadership, people would have still been running about like headless chickens as the demonstrators crashed the gates. But this was a group that knew how to function as a team, and the CO had spent many months getting them to operate as such. He brought the team back to that level in a matter of moments. His transformation of the scene was almost breathtaking.

Long after, I asked him about that time. He admitted to me that he was as frightened as the rest of us. “But Junior,” he said to me, using the nickname that he had begun calling me on my first day reporting to him, “always, always keep your game face on.”

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So what lessons can be drawn from this experience, lessons that transcend service in a war zone? A few, I think:

1. First and foremost and always: the team matters, and it matters above all. The CO saved the day in Bahrain, but only because he had a good team in place already with mutual respect shared between leader and led. Note to the business leader: if you ever think that the story is more about you than your people, you are in real trouble
2. Second: keep your game face on. Not because you are trying to present a false sense of security in the face of adversity, but because situations are influenced by people as often as the other way around. Psychology is a part of every issue. Embody confidence because you find the reasons to be confident, and give that confidence to your team. If the guy or gal in charge loses their cool, you can bet that the team will too.
3. Finally: act. Action solves problems, and “analysis-paralysis” rarely adds value beyond a certain point. Too many business leaders get shell-shocked when facing a crisis. Personally, when things seem challenging I find it helpful to remember that history is filled with people who have faced situations far harder than my own. Determine a solution and execute … even if it doesn’t work, at least you are engaged, and perhaps you’ve generated new options as a result. The CO that day immediately commenced giving direction to his command, and that eliminated much of the hand-wringing and doubt around the viability of our situation.

My Grandfather, who was a Captain in the Merchant Marine, used to say “God damn it, do something.” Be proactive, make a decision and – as we were only half-jokingly taught in Officer’s Candidate School – if that decision happens to be right, so much the better. A bias to action will overcome many obstacles in and of itself.

How one manages when times are good is no indicator of competence… it is when the challenges are extreme that we see who we really are. I got to see that in Bahrain. I’ve seen it at other times during my military service. And I’ve seen it in my civilian work (albeit with less dramatic consequences).

In a future post, I’ll talk about a time when I put that learning to a pretty serious test in my civilian job.

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Oh, by the way, as to the situation that day in Bahrain? It culminated in anti-climax (for the US military, at least) … but this message about crisis management wouldn’t have  resonated as well if I told you that upfront, would it have?

In fact, what makes it possible to focus on general learnings from a tale like this, for me anyway, is precisely because it ended benignly. Most of us in the military have had experiences post-9/11 that were also, perhaps, great “lessons learned” events, but that are far too painful to openly discuss. Or to debase by translating them into a business lesson.

The demonstration that day occurred at the Pearl Roundabout, and the protestors did try to march to the military air terminal. But the demonstration was smaller than the intel folks had forecast, and the marchers never got to us. The Bahrain anti-terrorism police stopped the protesters on the way, in much the same way they have stopped protesters in the last few years of the Arab Spring: with bone-breaking tactics.

And while this is not a political post or blog, it merits noting: these strong-armed tactics may have worked to stop the protests in their tracks. But the sense of hopelessness that drove them in the first place remains as palpable as ever across the Middle East. It is hard to see how there is a happy ending under such circumstances.

Follow Don on Twitter @KineticDHM
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Don Mathis is the CEO and Co-Founder of Kinetic Social, a company launched in 2011 with a core focus of marrying “Big Data” to social media on behalf of large brand advertisers.  He also serves in the active reserve of the US Navy, where he is the Commanding Officer of a highly deployable, selectively staffed, joint-service combat logistics unit that supports forward deployed war-fighters.

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‘Leadership’ is a concept we often resist.  It seems immodest, even self-aggrandizing to think of ourselves as leaders.  But if it is true that we are made for community, then leadership is everyone’s vocation, and it can be an evasion to insist that it is not.  When we live in the close-knit ecosystem called community, everyone follows and everyone leads.

Even I – a person who is unfit to be president of anything, who once galloped away from institutions on a high-horse – have come to understand that for better or for worse, I lead by word and deed simply because I am here doing what I do.  If you are also here, doing what you do, then you also exercise leadership of some sort.

It becomes a bit scary doesn’t it?  If Palmer is accurate, then everything we do is a form of leadership and we can’t avoid the responsibility for what happens in our organization.  So, the question becomes, what kind of leadership are you exercising? What kind of leadership do you want to exercise simply because you are part of your organization and you are acting within it?

Best wishes,

Gage

*Palmer, P. J. (2000). Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. Jossy-Bass:  San Francisco.

To SEE the BIG picture.

To SEE the DETAIL on the BIG picture.

To SEE who can HANDLE the DETAIL on the BIG picture.

To SEE above the mess or clutter, of what’s going on and have the ability to  maintain some clarity of vision and help others navigate that journey with you.

Jim Collins in his book Great by Choice describes it by saying that leaders of great businesses have developed an ability to ‘ZOOM IN, ZOOM OUT’. It’s not so much about should we change things but about being vigilant to sense changing conditions. Great leaders can do this as fast or as slow as is necessary due to the fact they have a handle on conditions. They SEE it. 

[What do you think?]

Learning about crisis management in the Global War on Terror

I last posted about why my Naval service has meaning for me. How I get the opportunity to serve with folks from all walks of life, unified in a common endeavor: doing something for the sake of others, doing something that isn’t just about the predominant “me”-obsessed cultural zeitgeist.

It’s grounding, especially in my civilian world of ad-tech entrepreneurship, where the bullshit can be so thick you need a full MOPP suit to keep from choking on it.

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But the Navy’s also been one of my most important classrooms. I’ve learned more about management and leadership in the service than I did at B-school or McKinsey, and I draw deeply on these lessons at Kinetic Social.

One of my biggest learnings? How to manage through a crisis. It’s a skill that has come in handy in my civilian career. From swiftly changing market conditions to frivolous lawsuits, from irrational competitors to even less rational bloggers whose journalistic integrity would make Rita Skeeter blush … operating in an entrepreneurial environment sometimes feels like brief moments of sanity in an otherwise ultra-manic universe.

The trick is to “keep your head when all about you are losing theirs’”, to paraphrase Kipling, and drive your vision through the gauntlet of crises achieving success despite them. Or perhaps because of them: “Sometimes a crisis is a good thing for a company. Recovering from a knockout punch often requires heroic efforts from the team,” wrote Fred Wilson in his blog post How Well Do You Take A Punch?  How you cope, how well you turn adversity into opportunity determines your eventual success.

This post is about a “trial-by-fire” dose of instruction in the art of crisis management while serving with the Navy.

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In 2002, I was deployed to Bahrain early in my first overseas “Long War” tour. This was a time when Afghanistan was still a pretty safe place to be in an unarmored Humvee, a time when no one really believed – I mean, none of us on active duty in the Middle East – that we’d actually invade Iraq. The war then was against Al Qaeda, and we were making progress. These were the salad days of the War on Terror.

On a particular early Spring day when the weather was amazing and the god-awful summer heat hadn’t yet started roasting the Persian Gulf, I was on duty at the military air terminal in Bahrain, a major logistics hub for Central Command. I had just enjoyed a stroll back to our side of the airfield from the little gedunk shack that served a terrific shawarma, when my Senior Chief came sprinting towards me across the aircraft ramp. “Sir! We’ve got a real Charlie Foxtrot!” he shouted. Charlie Foxtrot: mil-speak for Cluster F#ck.

Protesters in Bahrain

The early signs of unrest in Bahrain occurred long before the Arab Spring started in Tunisia or Tahrir Square. Bahrain’s Shiite majority – about 70% of the population – has long felt oppressed by Sunni minority rule. And when I say long, I mean centuries-long. Bahrain was conquered by the Sunni al-Khalifa family in 1783, and they have ruled the country ever since. And in 2002, King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa – who had earlier pledged to implement a genuine constitutional monarchy – was actively backing away from real reform and retrenching. The Shia felt betrayed and feared greater Sunni oppression, and sporadic protests broke out … a precursor to the troubles in Bahrain today.

Bahrain is home of the U.S. 5^th Fleet, and that’s why I was there, in the midst of a crisis that began to unfold around me on that otherwise pleasant Spring day. Then, as later, Bahraini opposition demonstrations often began at a place called the Pearl Roundabout (it is now destroyed). There had already been a series of protests over the past few weeks, nominally in solidarity with Palestinians against Israel. But the subtext of Shia-versus-Sunni and an anti-American flavor was strong.

On April 5^th, just a few days before, 20,000 protesters lobbed Molotov cocktails at the U.S. Embassy compound and breached its walls, with Bahraini anti-riot police stopping the demonstrators by using clubs, rubber-coated bullets and tear gas. A McDonalds that I’d been to was attacked as a symbol of America. Rumor had it that Shia doctors had set fire to their hospital in protest. A U.S. sailor was badly injured by an improvised explosive device attached to his car. It was a tense time.

The Pearl Roundabout was less than three miles from where I was at the military air terminal. On this particular day, the protest that formed there had the earmarks of a major civil disruption, a pre-planned event that could signal the beginning of serious sectarian violence – or so our intel people thought. They warned of 50,000 to 75,000 people, agitators embedded in the crowd with weapons, organization provided by Iranian-linked terrorists. It wasn’t clear that the Bahraini authorities could control or stop it.

And this crowd was supposedly marching our way to overrun and destroy the military airfield. All the makings of a lovely day.

US Marine FAST Company

The protocol for such events was simple, at least in theory: bring in the Marine Fleet Antiterrorism Security Team; evacuate most  personnel out of harm’s way, shred classified materials that cannot be removed; fly out  all aircraft that  could fly, tow any which couldn’t to the civilian-side of the massive airfield to buy time and allow the demonstration to dissipate. It should have been fairly straightforward.

But “the enemy gets a vote,” and in this case, one of our enemies was Murphy. As in, Murphy’s Law.

Just as we were thinking that we had a good handle on the situation, a C-5A Galaxy that was randomly and coincidentally transiting the theater at 35,000 feet declared an emergency and came screaming into Bahrain with a smoking engine. All of a sudden, we had a plane that couldn’t get out and that we lacked the equipment or time to tow away from the military air terminal.

A plane that was an awfully big, juicy symbol of America’s presence in the Middle East.

That would have been bad enough. But it got more interesting than that. On that C-5A was a contingent of special operations forces and their equipment. The Major in charge informed me that he wasn’t leaving the aircraft with its top-secret gear, and he’d defend it if necessary. When I told him that the senior officer present at 5^th Fleet HQ had ordered him and his troops to leave the airfield and find safe haven, he refused and told me his orders “came from an authority higher than mine”. And then the Major began deploying his troops in a defensive perimeter around the aircraft.

Special Warfare Operators

SO… now we had an angry crowd of demonstrators gathering a few kilometers away, preparing to march on our position and supposedly lay waste to it. We had Marines with non-lethal gear ready to hold them off … but we also had specwar operators armed to the teeth – with quite lethal gear, as you would imagine – surrounding an airplane as big as a building ready to defend it at all costs (what the hell was on that plane anyway?).

This all developed incredibly rapidly, and there was a growing, palpable sense that things were getting out of hand. It wasn’t even clear who the proper command authorities were with the specwar guys added to the mix, and we now had a seemingly impossible mandate to secure the facilities in the face of an uncontrollable mob hell-bent on destruction.

It was starting to feel like I was in one of those military Operational Readiness Assessment exercises where they keep throwing increasingly difficult complications at you. Eventually, such exercises end up putting you in a preposterous situation, the Defense Department’s equivalent of the Star Trek Starfleet “Kobayashi Maru” no-win scenario  … except that this was no exercise. We were most certainly on the verge of being “in the shit”.

To Be Continued in my next post…

Follow Don on Twitter @KineticDHM
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Don Mathis is the CEO and Co-Founder of Kinetic Social, a company launched in 2011 with a core focus of marrying “Big Data” to social media on behalf of large brand advertisers.  He also serves in the active reserve of the US Navy, where he is the Commanding Officer of a highly deployable, selectively staffed, joint-service combat logistics unit that supports forward deployed war-fighters.

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I couldn’t help think this morning looking back at the times the “Lights” seemingly have gone out on me. When ministry get’s hard and those unexpected hurts come, the lights seem to go out. How do we  handle it? Yes, the Sunday School answer is we are supposed to pray, I’m not trying to be disrespectful but too often, my reaction is too sunday school and not real. Let me explain. I have often criticized people for incorrectly throwing out Romans 8:28 as a safety net verse and almost name it then claim it attitude. 

When I have found myself down and hurting or struggling, that is one of the last verses I wanted to turn to for some reason, until lately.  It’s like the Spirit redirected my heart towards this passage and not just the one verse. Romans 8 is a powerful and transforming passage. It’s a “turning on” passage.

Let me give you a few light on moments in this passage for me and how God has been turning it on in my heart.

1. When you down, when someone hurts you. Remember who you are, in CHRIST. Vs.1 You are forgiven and loved by the Creator.

2. Your present suffering is accomplish things only God can see and you can and need to rest in that TRUTH! vs. 18  (yes, we may have to wait to see the good in it.)

3.)Remind yourself of what you KNOW. VS.28- What do you know about the Character of God. Who is he to you? What has he done for you? Spend some time focused not on the problem your facing but on the God who faces it with you. He says it will be GOOD (remember when he said “it is good, back in Genesis?, that means its really good.)

4. You can overcome whatever your facing! Vs. 37  I know what people can do and I know the effects of their sinful behavior and how it hurts, I know about problems in ministry that you may think cannot be overcome except by running away and hiding. Let me say from someone who has many experiences in this field. You can and will, by God’s grace and power overcome.  Begin by turning this over to him and rest. Keep walking ahead the course he’s set before you and stay faithful. Forgive quickly, live in peace!

I hope when the lights go out? you can power up with the Source of all real power!

Share with me, how do you “turn the light back on?”

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

It’s become a cliché but this is still a wonderful way to help people cope when faced with tasks that feel overwhelming.  Over the years, I’ve collected other bits of wisdom and advice to help me cope with large, or complex, or overwhelming tasks.

Anne Lamott’s* version of managing the elephant is to write no more than can be ‘seen’ through a one-inch frame.  When faced with a project that seems so impossible that you can’t find a way to get started, the idea is to start by writing a small amount.  Don’t worry about the entire report or getting the perfect first sentence, just start with a middle paragraph.  When I was hesitant to start working on my doctorate because I didn’t think I could write a dissertation (a great example of missing the forest for the trees), I was given a great reminder from a friend.  She told me that a dissertation was only 5 research papers and that I could write 5 research papers.  She was right about that and it demystified the idea of a dissertation.

Yoga teacher training helped me understand ways to manage complex tasks.  Our teacher taught us to juggle.  But he didn’t start by handing us three butcher knives to work with.  He didn’t even hand us three balls – he gave each of us one small ball.  Our first task was to learn to toss it up to the right distance and catch it again.  Then toss the ball up and catch in the opposite hand and pass back to the first hand.  Then he added a second ball and walked us through each step and didn’t add a third until we could manage two.  If someone got stuck, it was the role of the teacher to find the next smallest step that would move the student forward.  Next time you have a complex task, don’t work to figure out the entire project – see if you can identify a small manageable task to begin.  Then look for the next smallest task and so on – one bite at a time.

There are two important leadership tasks here.  One is to help your colleagues, co-workers or teammates find their way into the complexity before them.  Helping someone find the next smallest step gets them started and makes the entire project less overwhelming.  The second leadership task is to celebrate the small wins.  If all we see is the elephant, we can forget the importance of the accomplishments along the way and get discouraged by the length of the to-do list. Leaders don’t wait until the final task is done, celebrate the steps along the way.

We have all learned ways to manage the tasks that come our way.  What tips or advice have you been given that helps you deal with large, complex tasks?  Do you know any sayings that help you keep your perspective when you feel overwhelmed?

Best wishes,

Gage

* I couldn’t find a single office website so here is a link to Anne Lamott’s twitter feed. She’s worth following! https://twitter.com/ANNELAMOTT

1. No one is in charge. The airport doesn’t appear to have a CEO, and if it does, you never see her, hear about her or interact with her in any way. When the person at the top doesn’t care, it filters down.

2. Problems persist because organizations defend their turf instead of embrace the problem. The TSA blames the facilities people, who blame someone else, and around and around. Only when the user’s problem is the driver of behavior (as opposed to maintaining power or the status quo) things change.

5. By removing slack, airlines create failure. In order to increase profit, airlines work hard to get the maximum number of flights out of each plane, each day. As a result, there are no spares, no downtime and no resilience. By assuming that their customer base prefers to save money, not anxiety, they create an anxiety-filled system.

7. The ad hoc is forbidden. Imagine an airplane employee bringing in an extension cord and a power strip to deal with the daily occurrence of travelers hunched in the corner around a single outlet. Impossible. There is a bias toward permanent and improved, not quick and effective.

8. Everyone is treated the same. Effective organizations treat different people differently. While there’s some window dressing at the edges (I’m thinking of slightly faster first class lines and slightly more convenient motorized cars for seniors), in general, airports insist that the one size they’ve chosen to offer fit all.

11. No one is having any fun. Most people who work at airports have precisely the same demeanor as people who work at a cemetery. The system has become so industrialized that personal expression is apparently forbidden.

It’s all common sense, but these are all points worth remembering. Show leadership, don’t finger point when there’s a problem (do your residents really care if it was the person who answered the phone or the maintenance tech who forgot to document the complaint?), your prospects/residents don’t only care about price, take initiative to provide unexpected service and treat everyone as an individual and make sure you have some fun.

Easy!

Whether we like it or not, the things that we do every day do make an impact whether you’re a manager leading a team or a stay-at-home mom. It’s not a question of whether or not we’re making an impact but rather how we want to make an impact. Executives and celebrities tell stories about how their parents encouraged them to pursue their dreams, teachers who didn’t give up on them,  supervisors who believed that they can accomplish far beyond what they can think of. The list goes on and on.  I get to tell the story about how my mom exemplified honorable work ethic and hard work, how my pastor friend Alfred taught me that excellence must be a lifestyle and how my wife’s wise words of “your time will come” kept me going.

How we make an impact on someone else’s life may not end up on tomorrow’s newspaper or the next New York Time’s best seller’s list. But I’m pretty sure they will end up as stories getting told by your kids, the next generation of leaders or potentially as a story embedded in a TED talk.

Question: Do you have a story about someone who made an impact in your life? What about something you did for someone that is worth sharing to others. You can leave a comment by clicking here.

So, first you have to let go of control. Delegation – a buzz word that so few seem comfortable with. Delegation means letting go of control and still taking the responsibility for the any haywire results.  Letting go of control takes trust and training.  Trust in your employees and training that you have prepared that person for success.  Stephen Covey in his “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” discusses delegation in the concept of “Put first things first.”  While he addresses delegation as a tool to gain more time, his 5 “rules” resonate for teaching delegation: 1) Describe the desired results 2) Give guidelines 3) Provide resources 4) Practice accountability and 5) Provide consequences — either good or bad.  As someone who believes my job as a leader is to train and develop other leaders, these are the rules I am beginning to share because letting go of control is HARD. (It’s so much easier just to do it yourself… right? Oh, wait – then you are bogged down with so many details that you lose sight of the big picture!).  So, leadership is about letting go of control — and learning to delegate.

2) Letting go of people – whether someone is a performer or not, there is a time when as a leader, you need to let them go.  Honestly, neither route is easy. Some say it is easy to get rid of “nonperformers,” but realistically, with as much paperwork and bureaucracy as most organizations require, this isn’t exactly easy and takes quite a bit of follow through and documentation.  I have walked in to quite a few organizations where managers, leaders and employees have learned to “work around” someone not performing.  So much easier than having that tough conversation — and documenting it. But the performers see the nonperformers — and one my first mentors once said “When you walk by a mistake, you set a new standard.”  Allowing nonperformers to not perform is setting a lower standard for your entire organization.  Personally, I’d rather do the hard work to let go of the nonperformer than have to shift an entire culture.  Just as difficult is letting go of good people.  I have made a promise to anyone who works for me that I will help them grow — and I will let them go when the time comes.  (And most people think I am crazy — but anyone who has worked for me knows I am true to my word.)  I’ve been held back.  I’ve been told I was “too important” to move, and in those situations, eventually it was hard to stay motivated and focused because I felt like I was put in to a box.  I don’t ever want anyone who works for me to feel restrained — so a leader grows people and then is proud to let them go, as tough for an organization as it might be.

3) Finally, letting go of the credit.  Letting go of credit can be one of the most challenging aspects of being a leader, but realistically, if you are a leader, you are looking for ways to make your organization better.  It’s not about you anymore … it’s about the people who make your organization tick.  Learning to give others credit can be especially hard if you are a top performer and accustomed to the “kudos” that frequently comes with being good at what you do.   But, here’s where learning that leadership isn’t about you becomes the most satisfying… the awards your employees win, the projects they successfully accomplish.  I am my most proud when I am rewarding someone else — and it was a tough transition to make and yet, I am happier now as a leader because I made it.  I look at each new organization I join with “how can I make this place better and these people want to be better” without thinking about what is in it for me.  If you ask me, I haven’t done anything in the past 10 years, but I am happy to share accolades of my team…so, the next time you are thinking about saying “I did that”… give it away.

Leadership is about learning to let go — letting go of control, people and credit, but in letting go, the satisfaction grows. Try it and you’ll see!

Relationships are like a dance.  People spend so much time trying to change their partner’s steps and blaming them for treading on their toes.  When they instead focus on changing their own steps, the dance changes anyway.  Tania Daily, Relationship Coach

I’ve found myself talking about partnerships lately in a variety of contexts.  In one situation, I talked about the reality that in a partnership, partners have to learn to trust each other.  In a discussion with graduate students, we talked about leadership as a relationship in which both leaders and followers have a responsibility for the success of the partnership.  Today, I talked about a situation in which we need to have a business partner actually treat us as true partners asking what we need rather than telling us of a great product that solves a problem we may not have.

In each of these discussions, participants in the conversation named challenges to developing true partnerships. Time, equal status, and a willingness to listen were all identified as elements that are important for the development of real partnerships to name a few.  But the conversation with the graduate students identified an element I’d like to focus on here.  One of the graduate students talked about the challenges of working with a toxic leader and asked me how he could get the leader to change.

I shared with him one of the most important leadership lessons I’ve learned in my life and I learned it from my Mom.  Part one: the only person I can change is myself.  And we all know that’s difficult enough!  I can give feedback and make suggestions, provide data or seek out support, but I can’t make someone else change.  Which takes me to Part two – the only part of a relationship I can control is my part. 

But there is good news here – when I make a change in a partnership, the partnership changes in some way or another and sometimes the partner changes in reaction to what I do.  If you find yourself needing to improve a partnership, it’s easy to identify what your colleague needs to do, but the real road to improvement is to figure out what you need to do. 

What do you need to do to improve one of your partnerships? What steps can you change?

Best wishes,

Gage

Fulfilling a Dream

The US inauguration ceremony with all the pomp and splendour seemed to be a masterpiece of symbolism. It captured the symbolism of the President and the First Family in a moment of profound, personal and national pride.

Then there was the symbolism of the unity. The  inauguration tradition unites politicians across party lines to confirm in post the successful candidate in a celebration of democracy. In the context of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a dream’ speech , there was a tacit celebration of progress – personal and national.
Even with core concerns with  Obama‘s policies and views, it is hard not to be moved by the reality of the fulfillment of that dream. I wonder if Martin Luther King could have imagined that a generation later a black man would ascend to the Presidency. In 1963 it may have seemed an impossible hope to have a black man elected to the highest office in the land for one term not to talk of a second term. Yet in 2013, even after a difficult first term with multiple areas of disagreement within the United States, he has won again. It seems any discord is based on policy issues, inevitable voter dissatisfaction and not on racial tension. Obama is subject to the same pressures and privileges all presidents endure and enjoy.

There are some lessons about leadership  in this:

1. The importance of hope and dreams. Dreams inspire. Hope creates a zeal for change. When articulated with passion, they inspire and motivate even when times are tough. Leaders need to inspire people to see hope beyond the circumstances.

2. Change is never achieved without conflict and challenge. Time will tell whether Obama will achieve all he has set out to do in his second term in office. Witness the heated debates and the entrenched views over the economy, fiscal policy, foreign policy, the proposed changes to health care and now national fire arms. He  has to  continuously  convince US citizens  that all changes will be positive.

In the 2012 election, Obama was in some quarters labelled a failure. Defeat seemed a possibility. The mass tide of optimism and hope seemed to have dissipated. The disappointment stemmed from an expectation that positive  change would be widespread and swift.

In 2008, Obama seemed to suggest major positive  change would come within his first term. The changes proposed are / were not all seen as positive. This highlights the fact that even with a charismatic leader,   a respected orator with great social and political capital,  the process of change is problematic. Conflict and challenges are inevitable.

3. Consensus even when desirable is often unattainable. Managing different opinions and working collaboratively within the context of disagreement is a leadership skill that poorly mastered is a disaster.

4. Guiding principles and values are an important unifying force. When multiple divisions exist, guiding principles and values are the solid bedrock on which policy can be formulated and decisions negotiated.

In the immediate aftermath  of the inauguration reality must  kick in. Positive change once promised creates an expectation. Presidents and leaders of whatever hue, should not be judged on their  rhetoric or race but on  their record. Obama has already demonstrated that dreams can come true. History and  future generations will very likely judge him on  whether the conditions for the fulfillment of this dream and other dreams consistent with American values are capable of  fulfillment at all levels of  American society.

Connected by Conversation by mikecogh

With all the travel that I’ve done for the past few years, I’ve learned how to pay attention to the people around me – how they talk,  act and even how they carry themselves. I’ve watched people talk to their kids, negotiate a seat on a plane, ask for favors, etc. I’ve learned a lot about people just by observing and watching them go about their life. One thing that caught my attention during my recent trip was how people like to engage in a conversation. I was on a flight from Charlotte to New York City getting ready to tighten my seat belt as I heard the flight attendant talk to one of the passengers aboard the plane (I was just a few feet away to hear their conversation.) The passenger happens to be another flight attendant who is on his way to Europe for a vacation. What’s very interesting is that their conversation evolved from the trip itinerary to the strategic approach that the airline can undertake to improve customer service and satisfaction. In a previous blog post, I’ve highlighted how merchandise staff who didn’t even go to college talked about strategic positioning of products for increased sales. This is the kind of information that leaders value. But why isn’t this kind of information making it’s way into the boardrooms? Let me tell you why. It’s because upper management have not taken that extra step of engaging their staff in conversations. Do you remember one of those conversations you’ve had with your close friends where you kept talking yet they weren’t paying any attention? I bet you stopped talking when you noticed (or maybe tried to do something to get their attention back.)

Leadership expert Dr.  John Maxwell said this in his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Engaging people in conversations means more than just extracting information from individuals. It means paying attention to what matters to them. Even the small details matter. Sometimes, even as simple as listening could mean a lot. When we know that what we say matter to the listener, we’re more inclined to be open and speak more.

Leaders and managers have resorted to memos and emails to communicate their message to the organization. Unfortunately, this approach has created barriers in communication. As leaders, it is our responsibility to take that first step. Get out of your office, walk among the crowd and engage your staff in a conversation. Who knows, your next big product or service idea might come from the janitor.

Power Triangle-

1- Rom 1:16 Power of the Gospel- Preventative Power
The message of the gospel is our power and should always remain the forefront of our ministries. We should consistently present the children we minister to the gospel message.

2- -Power in the Position of weakness- 2 cor 12:9-10 -not a message but a mindset.
We are always praying to get out of these rough situations (mentioned in 2 Cor passage)
but they are the times we grow most.
From a position of weakness God can show his strength.
Don’t attempt something that you know you can do, but go to a position of weakness, so you don’t take the credit. Let it be only something God can do.
* This is so difficult, but a necessary thing if we are to experience God’s power in our ministry.

3. James 5:16- The method of ernest prayer-
To pray earnestly means to “put your heart in it.” – We often give up on prayer and instead God is calling us to devote ourselves to prayer. To pray continually and eagerly expecting God to answer in ways only he can do.

This was a powerful message! I highly recommend you purchase the download from http://www.INCM.org

I believe that I can offer  some answers to that question, and I hope you will consider attending either Orlando 2014 or San Diego 2013. CPC is an amazing conference for not just Children’s Pastors. If you are involved in kid’s ministry, you can and should attend.

First, Everyone needs a time to rest, learn, and worship. At CPC, you are given exactly those opportunities. The schedule is set up in such a way that you can take some time to rest and refresh yourself.  There are many great breakout sessions (watch my blog for the notes to the ones I attended as well as some links to several blogs with notes from CPC13) The breakouts are broken down into many tracks, such as: Administration, Pre-school, Elementary, Leadership/self-care, Creative Teaching. These breakouts are full of great information and opportunities to rub shoulders with others who are in kidmin.

Worship- Each year INCM, brings in some great worship leaders who lead us to the throne and a time to really focus on praise! This year was another great year of worship and I was often in awe of the majesty of God. Another great reason to attend CPC, is the opportunity to interact with people from all around our country and world. I’ve had the privilege of meeting some great people this year and am blessed to have formed some amazing friendships. The body of Christ is a wonderful thing when it comes together around the purpose of glorifying God and reaching the next generation.  There are great opportunities to talk and learn from others. 

A third reason I’ll share is the resource area! There are so many great resources to see and check out at CPC that it can almost be overwhelming. All the major publishers are here sharing their latest and greatest materials as well as many amazing ministries and organizations that can help improve your kids ministry.

The final reason, is the opportunity to be feed yourself. I don’t know about you but I often don’t get the chance to worship and listen to preaching. At CPC, they bring in some wonderful speakers for the general sessions that will impact your heart and life.

Is CPC worth the time and money? ABSOLUTELY!!  I can tell you after attending three years, it was and is worth it.

If you attended CPC, what was your favorite part?

If you have specific questions about CPC, please feel free to contact me.

IBM Schoolhouse, Endicott NY, 1930s

IBM’s legendary President Thomas J. Watson, Sr., was a leader of unbridled optimism. “This business of ours has a future,” he noted in 1926, just 12 years after he joined IBM. “It has a past that we are all proud of, but it has a future that will extend beyond my lifetime and beyond your lifetime.”

Much of that optimism was based on his faith in the knowledge, abilities, and character of IBM employees. “Very few persons throughout the country have seen our factory, our School, our Laboratory, or our World Headquarters Building, and the only way they have to judge the character of IBM is by the character of those who represent us.” But he recognized that IBMers were not born – they were made. To that end, he believed that one of his chief responsibilities as IBM’s leader was to unleash the collective potential of his workforce. One of the ways he did that was by placing great emphasis on employee development.

Watson was fond of saying, “There is no saturation point in education,” and he backed those words by building an educational infrastructure that was second to none. IBM’s tradition of investing in employee development dates to 1916 with the creation of the IBM Education Program. Over the next two decades the program would expand to include management education, volunteer study clubs, training for the disabled, and the construction of an IBM Schoolhouse in Endicott, New York in 1933. So deeply ingrained in IBM culture was the notion of personal development, that starting in the 1920s, IBMers began forming after-hour study clubs to increase their knowledge of their professions and the company’s business.

Watson’s emphasis on employee education was not the benevolence of a paternalistic leader – he saw clear business value in this investment in his workforce. “When a man stops studying, stops acquiring knowledge about the business or profession in which he is engaged, he doesn’t stand still,” Watson said. “He starts going backwards.” And backsliding was something every IBMer had to avoid … even Watson himself. “I found out years ago that because I gave so much of my time to my own business I was getting into a rut. So I decided to get out and see what other people were doing, to broaden my mind on business in general and see what I could bring back and apply to my own business.”

IBMers took Watson’s edicts to heart. Between 1938 and 1952, 40% of Endicott employees were enrolled in classes, covering 33 subjects. By 1954, IBM Education worldwide was running more than 50,000 students (internal and external) through its programs. In 1961 alone, 17,000 employees participated in voluntary study courses.

“In this day and age, education is the one Master Key we can depend on to open the door to future progress, “ Watson said in 1930. “The future of the International Business Machines Corporation, and of every person connected with the Company, depends not upon the amount of time we spend in study; but upon what we learn and upon our ability to transfer our knowledge to newcomers in the business so that they may keep step with the pace of IBM—a pace which is constantly increasing!” In the 80 years since, little has changed.

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Paul Lasewicz, IBM Corporate Archivist

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The January 2013 theme for The Greater IBM Connection is ”leadership”, and The Greater IBM Connection will be sharing various tips, tools, stories, and resources on this topic.

• It’s all about leadership

• IBM Connect 2013 – You still have time to sign up

• What’s new around The Greater IBM Connection

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It’s all about leadership

In the last few weeks, you might have noticed that a lot of our stories, social media posts, tips, and resources have focused on one essential idea: leadership.

After all, the start of a new year is a great time for assessing your life and career and for making new commitments. If one of your goals is to become a better leader, then here are some of the recent posts at The Greater IBM Connection around our central theme, for inspiration.

• IBM CEO Virginia Rometty Shares Her Leadership Philosophy
• 20 Years of IBM’s Patent Leadership (infographic)
• IBM Vice President, Dr. Matt Wang, Awarded 2012 IT Times Outstanding Leadership (China)

What are YOUR favorite leadership tips or quotations? Share them with your fellow community members in the Comments.

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IBM Connect 2013 – You still have time to sign up

Get Social. Do Business. IBM Connect 2013 is almost here. This large-scale annual event, January 27 – 31 in Orlando, combines the deep technical content that you’ve loved for 20 years with the learning you need to accelerate your move beyond social media to drive real business value with social and collaborative technologies. And there’s still time to register.

Register for this event and identify yourself as an IBM alumnus – we’ll let you know about special alumni networking opportunities at and around this event. When registering, you’ll be asked how you heard about the conference. Select “Other”, and then in the open field, be sure to include the code IBMALUM13. That’s all there is to it.

Register now

More:

Don’t miss this new Web lecture, From Liking to Leading(Note: may require a one-time sign-in)

In this brief video, learn more about what social business means to you and your business:

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What’s new around The Greater IBM Connection

The beginning of the year can be especially busy, with catching up on work missed over the holidays, setting goals for the new year, keeping resolutions. In case you missed these, here’s a roundup of some of the most widely read stories on The Greater IBM Connection blog:

• 10 Leadership Lessons from IBM Executive School
• IBM’s 5 in 5: Welcome to the Era of Cognitive Systems
• 9 Bad Work Habits and How to Break Them
• Why Is IBM Called Big Blue? The Uncertain History of a Colorful Nickname

Anything you would like to read more about at The Greater IBM Connection? We always like to hear from you; let us know in the Comments.

Here’s some lessons I picked up along the way:

1. Have a system in place.

On 24/7 call leads to an interesting work schedule. The station we visited had 3 teams A, B, C. Typically you work every other night for a few shifts that you get a number of days off. That means that Team A has its own fridge, Team B its own fridge, and Team C its own fridge. The calendar is already filled out for the year and color coded so you know by a quick glance which your time to work will be.

Even more than figuring out sharing food, their is a schedule during the day for training, paper work and yes, handling emergencies. The night is focused to handling those emergencies as well as getting rest when possible.

2. Have a common language.

In the call I went on fire fighters from different stations arrived, not only that but also from different jurisdictions. Yet they spoke a common language. They had developed not only in San Diego but around the country, a common language to use as well as a common system to dealing with emergencies. This is good. Do you really want them figuring out who does when the emergency arises? No, you want action fast. Even more you need action immediately.

Similar to the Fire Truck I saw on my visit, but this one is is from Chico, CA Thanks to Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:ChicoCAEngine4.jpg First uploaded by: User:Nick Precision on the English Wikipedia Caption: Picture of the City of Chico’s (California) Fire Engine 4

3. When you need to deal with the issue, do so now!

As they were fixing our dinner before we arrived, the team of 4 was called out on a call. They pulled the meat out of the oven, and off they went. The call I went on, I didn’t even go get my jacket. I just got in and went, and we went with sirens blaring and red lights shining.

4. Determine chain of command and empowering leadership decisions before the crisis arises.

I was impressed to see the system in place to respond to medical or fire emergencies. There is a set chain of command. Resources are not only dedicated but also deployed to handle the situation before the situation is fully known.

5. Thanks those who serve so well for a job well done.

Getting a closer look at what goes on in the Fire Station on a Friday night provided a greater appreciation for the sacrifice and service of our La Mesa / East County / San Diego Fire Fighters. I was deeply moved by their service, and greatly appreciate not only the lessons they taught but the work they do each day. God bless them abundantly!

- Dr. Bill Gould -

I had the opportunity to spent the last Christmas and New Year in my home country, the Philippines. And every time I do get the chance to go home, I try to create memorable events for both me and my family. I blogged about my community activity with my son before the turn of the new year and it was quite an experience. However, there was one experience that really moved me, one that I didn’t have to create.

I was on my way home after delivering a presentation on SQL Server Failover Clustering to a healthcare company in Manila. As always, I try to take the public transport as much as I can when I’m in Manila.  As I got off the light rail transit, waiting for the next jeepney ride that would take me home, something caught the corner of my eye. There it was, a signage very familiar to me and my wife almost 12 years ago. It was that of a pawnshop. Within a few seconds, it was as if I was taken back in time and my past being replayed right before me.  I couldn’t help but get teary-eyed within that short span of time. Now, you might be wondering why. You see, that pawnshop has seen us more times than we could remember. I remember having to pawn several of my and my wife’s jewelries just so we have something to eat for the next couple of days, not knowing if we will ever see them again.  I remember arguing with my wife to not take her valuable possessions to the pawnshop. She, on the other hand, would always reassure me that everything’s going to be alright and that our marriage was more important than those valuables. A few blocks away from the pawnshop was where we started our family, the place that I was talking about in a previous blog post – the place where we slept in a small-sized bed with barely enough cushion to soften our backs and the buzzing sound of mosquitoes that kept us awake when we didn’t have electricity. I remember feeling a sense of self-pity about not even having any means to support my family despite having a degree from a prestigious university.  And, as supportive as she can be, my wife would always tell me that the time will come when all of our experiences will simply be stories worth telling others. And in a span of a few minutes, I was brought back into my new reality as a jeepney stopped right before me, waiting for me to hop in.

Every time I have an opportunity to do so, I tell people about our stories and our journey as a family. It’s my way of encouraging others that no matter what situation they are in, there will always be a brighter future if we simply look forward to it. More important than telling the story, I take time to revisit my past to remind myself of where I came from. The reminder keeps me grounded that even though my wife and I can now afford to have dinner at a fancy restaurant or travel anywhere we want, we must never forget our humble beginnings. It is those tough experiences that led us to where we are right now. The Bible talks about persevering under challenging circumstances and those who do so will receive the promises of God. In our experiences, that proved to be something very real and tangible. We’ve not only received what we believed God has promised us, we’ve also had the wonderful opportunity to share out stories with others.

Having gone into the first few days of 2013, let’s take stock of our past year (or even years) and revisit our experiences. Are we using those experiences to help us shape a better future?